What matters now

Holding onto the present, like apple slices, fish bones and calling your name.

Ain't the world pretty!

This father’s day, we are together, and it starts with cooling down your fever spiking at 2 a.m. Cool water, wet towel, my warm hand, all gently resting on your forehead. The orange thermometer in your armpit, waiting for it to beep so we can know if we are crushing two other tablets for you to drink or not. Beeping sound, 38.4 Celsius, 2 tablets drop in the ceramic cup, they make a lively clink, as my sister quietly yawns. It’s Sunday, and none of us is going to church, because taking care of someone you love is a better form of worship sometimes.

The golden sunlight finds its way in your room around 7 a.m, no more burning fevers, let the sun now burn instead. The door to your bedroom is open and the piano music from the radio my sister turned on plays softly, the notes float from the kitchen to where we are. As you sit, I’m standing holding your blue toothbrush, tiny pieces of spinach caught in-between its bristles. Inside your mouth, it’s toothpaste foam and water, that I am trying to convince you to rinse and spit, into the pink plastic cup in front of you. Until I perceive a swallow, as subtle and innocent as it can be. Inside your throat, with that foam and water going down right now, it must look like an ocean’s surf. The golden sunlight, the piano music that floats, and your beautiful face, how could I ever be angry? So I laugh, to hell with rinsing water and swallowed toothpaste.

Every time I run out of money I remember you, and how you once told me that I have this habit of bearing things for longer than I should. A damaging kind of patience. You said I wasn’t being honest when I said I’m fine in that first semester in college, and so you channelled whatever was in your bank account, into mine, right after we hang up. You’ll do anything to be able to provide, for me, for us. Like when you sold your plot of land and your Toyota Hilux, so some of us don’t end up dying in Dar es Salaam, in our damaging kind of patience.

I still cry, just not in front of you these days, whenever I’m having those excruciating period cramps. The ones I had that evening you asked me what was wrong, and I saw a layer of water forming in your eyes too, even if it never fell. I lied about the headaches, but the pills you brought me helped anyway. I still keep some pills in my bag so I don’t end up in ugly tears in front of you when I’m in my crimson moon, and most importantly don’t end up in a hospital ward with tubes of red blood cells transfusions like I did last September.

And I’m glad we danced to John Lucas’ It’s a wonderful life, before you were confined to the bed and the wheelchair. That dance was so awkward that it unscrews the bolts of laughter inside of me whenever I remember it, but it will always be one of the best I’ll ever have. And now I deem it impossible for me to dance with any guy without thinking about you and our awkward dance. I love how it lovingly haunts me.

Though you might not remember any of this, it actually doesn’t matter. What matters is that right now we are eating apples, and I’m removing all the bones from your fish. The BBC is on, one of your favourite, and a British guy with a British accent is talking about British railway systems. And it all becomes a fading ambience the second I say Baba, and you lift your eyes to meet mine, you say Naam.

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* In Swahili, Naam is what usually a boy/man responds with when someone calls their name or title. However, anyone can still use Naam to simply mean “yes.” To satisfy your throbbing curiosity, a girl/woman usually responds with Abee. you’re welcome.