Last year, his younger brother disappeared from home. He was last seen at 10 PM leaving a local pub in their former neighbourhood. We lost an auntie, may her soul continue resting in peace, and buried her before finding him.
After almost six weeks after burying my face auntie, his younger brother was found in a morgue.
A drunk would be the why. They met with him in the same pub and after a few drinks the man started crying hugging him tightly. If you know Africa, you know men hugging can be mistaken as homosexuality easily in most places. Where they were, was such a place. Or should I say such an establishment?
He fought the drunk off hurling insults at him to make it known that whatever the drunk's intention was, he had nothing to do with it. That he was still 'an African man.'
The drunk boasted of his wife and children and stated he was uninterested in the unholy.
He added he just felt guilty that he didn't shower for his younger brother's burial yet they had been drinking with him that night. He continued to say he could have died that night too but when he saw his younger brother wiped off the highway by a speeding truck, he decided to take the pedestrians stairs.
He was shaking when the drunk threw him a confused gaze.
Like why are you sneering at me like that? Haven't you ever seen a heartbroken man before weeping over his dead drinking buddy? Wait. No. It can't be. Don't tell me I am the one letting you know that your brother is in the morgue.
His lips rattled as he asked the drunk when.
And that question sobered them up.
He called home and said he might have found his brother. A search in a government mortuary yielded a disfigured body. He knew his brother meet a gruesome death.
The eye witnesses (night time motorcycle riders and taxis on one end and the drunk on the other side) tell a tale of something being hit and dragged beneath some speeding lorry.
After his younger brother's funeral, he asked if we could take a photo of him just incase because we struggled to find one for his brother's eulogy. We took this one...
He didn't put down his drink after that.
Not even when he contracted Tuberculosis some time in the last quarter of 2019. He didn't bother finishing the treatment. I think he got tired of being the black sheep. A certified drunk.
The TB came back and this time, his liver was hanging on a thread, literally, and he had kidney problems. From Saturday, we have been somewhat looking into his hospitalization after he collapsed due to pneumonia.
He gave in this morning around 6:30 am. Survived by his only sister and her three children. The only remaining person in their family of five. Parents passed on way back.
Now... the photo that we took will end in his eulogy as it's the only known recent photo of him. And that won't haunting me :(
Rest Well Cuz. May Soul Finally Find Peace.
Wambuku W.