I don't even know what i want to say. Which is ironic because there is so much to say. I haven't been able to write. Every time I push open my laptop, open a new page, I cry and shut it down. The last time I blogged was for you. The last post was about you. And that time, you called me immediately after. We talked. We laughed This time, you wont be calling me. We won't talk. We won't laugh.
It's hard to even see this page. Tears cloud the eyes that you called mischievous. I have to do it. Somehow. I let out on this pages. I open my heart on this keyboard. Nothing has ever been this hard to write.
Where do I start? The night I learnt you were gone? What was happening before I learnt you were no more? The long sleepless night we had as we debated whether to come to hospital and check if it was true, or to just sit and wait? How everything mattered not that night. How we forgot everything that had just happened a few hours before and held each other and cried and cried?
Maybe I should start with getting to hospital and trying to sort out paperwork. And how hard it was to keep hearing 'the body'. I wanted to scream. He is not 'the body'. His name is Bakari. I wanted to scream a lot that day. And also on the day we had that gig for you at Vanillas. I hated everyone there at that moment. Everyone that was drinking and having fun and dancing. I spent most of the night away from the bar. Sitting in the parking lot, talking about you with the boys you grew up with. Alternating that with tears. I couldn't stand to be with the people that looked so happy. I couldn't stand look at your picture on the banner outside the pub. The picture of you healthy and smiling. As if you were there, but not there.
I know it was crazy and irrational of me to feel that way. What did I want? People to stand around crying and sad? People to talk about nothing but you? But you get it, right? It felt like life had gone on. Moved on, like it did not care that you were not here anymore.
The painful truth is, life did go on. Life always goes on. But the pain, the pain lives on. Sure, once in a while I forget. Then something will happen, and I will think of you. It's like my tears sit at the edge of my eyes, waiting for that moment.
I have hit depression.
I have never been depressed in my life. Sad part, no one in my life right now understands this. I do not understand this myself. I have been scared of death. I wrote about it a few months ago. How I don't think i will live past my 30th birthday. That's still real. Even more real now. When I met you, it was a breath of life. This happy, courageous, contagiously funny man who made me think that I was stupid for not enjoying my life more. I lived through you. I found a new meaning to life. I did not have to think about the eventuality. I lived for the moment. Like you did. You helped me open my heart up to the possibility of being in love again. Hell, you encouraged me. You told me it was possible. To you, everything was possible. We met at a time in my life where i had given up. Given up on happiness.
It feels like you took away what you gave me when you left. I know the rational thing would be to hold on to that what you gave me, keep your memory alive in my heart by being happy. By taking the bright side of life. But since you left, I can't.
I keep wondering why I met you, for you to show me what could be, only for you to leave. Someone asked me if I was in love with you after the first blog. I laughed. Because they couldn't understand how you got to me the way you did. I loved another. You liked that it was him I was in love with. You said because it meant you'd have me in your life longer. And I told you it didn't matter what happened, you and I would always be friends. You made fun of us. You told me you thought we were meant to be. I loved you. I still love you. I always will. As the best friend anyone could ever ask for. As a brother. As a man who gave selflessly.
I dont know what happens to me now. Because the dark days are back. I can't find joy in anything. I can't be happy. I keep remembering death is cruel and it's stronger than anything I can ever build. Because it takes away in an instant.
It killed me when they lowered you. When they put the cement, I wanted to rush over and pull it apart. Gnaw at it till my fingers bled. How was I going to leave you down there, all by yourself? Wasn't it cold? Lonely? I am very claustrophobic. I was losing breath. It hit me just then. That was it. You were gone. And I was never hearing your voice again.
Then I touched the ring you gave me. I hated rings I told you. You said you didnt care, I had to wear it. And you said if he never gives me a ring, he was stupid for that and at least you did. And if he ever does, then you beat him to it because he took too long. This ring, it hurts as much as it makes me smile. Because the day you gave it, we had the most amazing time. We made crazy bets. That I lost. But you made me promise to take care of him. And you vowed to remind me every chance you got. We had too much nyama choma. I went to Amsterdam, as you called it. We had ice-cream with you and the boys. And that was the last day we spent together out of hospital.
It's like you knew. Now I know you knew. Especially from what we talked about on the last day I visited you. When you asked me to come at lunch hour to be feeding you lunch. Because you wanted to talk to me and evenings were hard time to talk. I never did. Because a few days later, you were taken to ICU. The next time I saw you, they had put you in cabinet in a morgue. And it did not look like you. I know you were there. Because at that moment, looking at you, I felt a calmness. That told me everything was fine. You were not in pain anymore. But that calmness is now gone. Why? Have you left? Are you not here anymore?
I miss you.
