My Kind Of Love

Today is exactly ten  years since this life changing event took place in our lives.It was a cold Sunday afternoon we were waiting for lunch , playing volleyball outside our gate,my brothers and I.She called me and  asked me to call a neighbour friend of hers,she was unwell.I was shocked,she was fine all morning,she had skipped church though which was unlike her.She was taken to a hospital about five miles from home.She asked my big brother to finish preparing lunch.Our moods changes from happy and playful to somber. He made lunch but nobody touched it.That night we could not sleep,we were worried sick.The neighbor who had taken her to the hospital came and told us that she had been admitted but she would discharged in a day or two.My brother who was in form three at the time wanted to skip school the following day and go see her but he was informed that mum did not want to be seen as she would be home soon.

Two days later she came home.My brothers were in their houses which were outside the main house,she asked me to call them.A baby wrapped in a blue baby blanket was on the bed,it looked so tiny,viciously sucking on its thumb.

“Guys,this is our baby.He is called Moses.”,my mother said.

My big brother just laughed,call us dumb but none of us had knowledge of a pregnancy,she had traveled alot those past few months,and had carefully kept it from us.We were genuinely shocked,my brothers left the room leaving me and mum to stare and fuss about him.He was so tiny and all pink.My mum asked me to go to bed as the following day i was going to school.

The weeks that followed saw to it that my mum was plunged into post postpartum depression,or baby blues characterized with sever headaches and migraines,she was having a hard time breastfeeding.The baby would cry all night through,and i would hold him as my mum nursed her migraines.She taught me how to feed him-grip water,how to change his nappy ,what position to lay him on,how to wrap him,bathe him and how to soothe him  to sleep.

He became the latest addition in our family and a great fascination,we were overjoyed to have him,Eventually my mother got better,and when he was three months old my mother had to go back to work.During the August holidays,all of us chipped in to take care of him.He was growing fast.He had come to a family where the youngest was  nine at the time,my brother and i were  thirteen and my big brother was seventeen.He was truly loved,and he fought for his identity and place in the family.

He had just learnt how to call “mum” when she was brutally murdered.He would never know her or get to feel her love.He would never relate when other kids at the kindergarten talked about their mothers.He had never known his father.It was as if fate hated him.Even so,he showed a defiance and some kind of determination.He fought his way to stay alive.My maternal instincts kicked in and i tried to take on the gap my mother had left.It was hard.Those  shoes were a little too big for a fifteen year old,who mind you was in school at the time.I was determined to make him feel loved and even if i could not be what my mother had been to him,i was going to do  all i could.

He was a very withdrawn child,he hardly played with other children..I love him fiercely,like he is mine,which by the way if you ask him he will tell you his name is Ian Njoki.
I have watched him grow,I saw him fight the teething battle, take his first steps,took him to school where he wailed and clung to my dress scared, start primary school,I tried but failed to teach him how to ride a bike but he rides it anyway.I tried but failed while trying to tie his first tie,i cannot be all sorts of things to him but i know i am doing my best for him.It has not been easy raising him,i know the worst is yet to come when he hits teenage-hood and changes,but I know he will turn out just fine.I know he will be a nice gentleman.I have no room for anything less.
That, people,is my kind of love.Very fierce,genuine, kind,patient through his every day steps and one that will never fail.