Don’t Give Up!!!

I was sent a video that I think is doing the rounds on not giving up and this got me thinking…

On the surface “Don’t Give Up” sounds like a stern warning or urgent call to dig your heels in and fight on or fight for what is yours. It reads more in the direction of “don’t throw in the towel” and in most cases that’s what is meant. Stay the course, pursue that career, don’t abandon the marriage, defend and protect that child, and the list goes on.

This morning though I thought to myself based on that video I watched because the speaker talked about breaking a cycle. Just what if… just what if “Don’t Give Up” also means saying enough is enough and allowing that wayward child face the hand of the law to serve their sentence in jail as opposed to hiding them and “smothering” them with love or maybe saying no to that child because you will cripple them for life. What if it means walking out of a high paying drab routine job to follow a dream that may be considered a hobby by the onlookers… What if it means giving your children a new narrative and walking out of an abusive marriage so that they (especially your sons) can know not to dish out abuse and bad manners or for the girls to see abuse and not allow it near them.

On cycles… do you know that a young man watching his mother take abuse in whatever form can think it’s okay to treat women thus? Maybe “Don’t Give Up” here means not being silent but rather speaking up and calling wrong it’s rightful name “wrong”. I’ve known young people who have shunned God simply because their praying mother was maimed or killed by their abusive father or relatives because the call was “Don’t Give Up”.

I’ll ask… what do you think “Don’t Give Up” actually means?

Let’s talk.

Savour the moment

“Therefore I tell you, stop being worried or anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted) about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, as to what you will wear. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow [seed] nor reap [the harvest] nor gather [the crops] into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by worrying can add one hour to [the length of] his life? And why are you worried about clothes? See how the lilies and wildflowers of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin [wool to make clothing], yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory and splendor dressed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive and green today and tomorrow is [cut and] thrown [as fuel] into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Therefore do not worry or be anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted), saying, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’
Matthew 6:25‭-‬31 AMP

I’m such a little planner who wants all my ducks in a row, my ‘ts’ crossed and all my ‘is’ dotted. Every time things don’t go according to plan anxiety kicks in and in enters panic mode.

I’ve had to remind myself these past two weeks not be anxious and to enjoy the now. I’ve constantly reminded myself to live in the moment and to stop allowing time lines and events to define how I feel. Even now as I write there are certain things I need accomplished, bridges I need to cross and I am reminding myself to be still and know that He is God and He is in control. My joy and my fulfillment should not be in when something is accomplished or fulfilled. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying you shouldn’t celebrate the wins. By all means go ahead and throw that party, pat yourself on the back when you get to the finish line but please stop and savour the moment. Live in the now and don’t steal the joy from that moment as you heap it onto your pile of stuff and hit the “next” button.

In her honour…

A little after midnight I heard my mother’s car slowly screeching into the basement of the flat where we lived. I should have been excited at the sound of that familiar screech but this time it wasn’t her driving. It was her car carrying her property from the hospital but she was never coming back. I had lost my mother and my world as I knew it had come to a sudden halt. I was numb. I felt hollow. She had actually left with a part of me and I was going to plod around with that emptiness for a long long long time.

Sunday 21st November 1999… and here we are full circle on Sunday 21st November, 22 years later. I honestly didn’t think I would live another day without my mother. She was my identity, my shield, my compass. She always had a solution for every problem that’s why I believed her when she said she wouldn’t die because she knew she had to take care of me. My first emotion was that of betrayal. For the first time in our lives my mother hadn’t kept her word. It took me a while to forgive her for dying and leaving me by myself.

My mother died 3 weeks before her 42nd birthday. I remember her big sister; my aunt Margaret saying “this girl has left so young” and it was funny. My mother? A girl? Well I turn 42 next year and now I realise my mother left a little too early. She was indeed a girl.

Aunt Norah as she was fondly called by her nieces and nephews had opened her home to so many of them when they had first come to the city. A few of them were planning to throw her a surprise birthday party that year. Maybe it’s also one of the reasons my 42nd is special; I don’t know. But I intend to celebrate my 42nd birthday all of next year. Maybe I’ll do something special every month of next year in honour of my mother. She loved life and she lived it really beautifully.

So here is to my mother… 🥂to loving life and living it beautifully in her honour

Loudly Calm???

Last evening I was on call with a friend who mentioned or was it a complement 🤔 that I am calm. I laughed hard at that definition of me.

Here is why… I’m your typical people person, I love to drink chai out somewhere with my girls but I love the more intimate quiet one on ones. To many people I am that person that walks into a room and draws a crowd to herself yet I don’t like crowds. I love the familiar safe comfort zone. Don’t ask me to meet new people, don’t make me stand before a crowd, please don’t ask me to take a voice call, let’s text, at most send me a voice note. I promise I’ll respond.

After the observation by my friend I decided to do a little self analysis and believe it or not I’d rather be the inconspicuous person in a place. I love listening to people. I replay conversations later and analyse the entire conversation long after its been held and then I’m able to find my footing. Don’t be fooled… I can be very opinionated and I stand firm in my beliefs. I have quite a loud hearty laugh and I enjoy being around people with a clean sense of humour but I discovered that my true identity is one of calmness🤣🤣🤣🤣

Okay even I am laughing but I am well on my journey of discovering who Desire truly is not the one people have said she is but the one she’s comfortable being…

One too many times…

No matter how many times it has happened the death of a loved one always stings pretty hard. This may be one of those incoherent blogs. I’m writing with lots of emotion and pain. I learnt this evening that my aunt Justine passed on. Her death reminded me of three other people in my life whose death was an ugly slap in my face or shall we say heart, no… Maybe chest.

Shortly after I had cried… No scratch that! Bawled my eyes out in the presence of my three sons and luckily a friend (while the boys continued to watch TV amidst the occasional “is mum OK?” and a gentle tap and hug) I started thinking “a few more minutes, okay maybe months and I’d have made time to see her”. Suddenly I remembered Caroline Mutoko’s 8 minute talk on how she run out of time and the pain of the death of these 4 special people suddenly came back fresh.

During the Easter break of 1996 I nagged my mother to go visit her father, Shwenkuru Twayaga. It had been a while since I’d last seen him. My mother had just learnt how to drive and was therefore not confident enough yet to get onto the highway and no… We were not about to jump onto a bus to Kabale for a leisurely visit. I talked about how much I missed Shwenkuru… I talked and talked and talked and then talked about him some more. My talking got me a promise to visit Nyamyerambiko where Shwenkuru lived over the Christmas holidays. In July of 1996 while I was at school mummy came to pick me up from school looking really tired and haggard. Shwenkuru had passed away. I had run out of time 😭

Fast forward to 6 years ago… I run out of time again. My godfather had been battling cancer and for some reason I couldn’t sync my time to visit him. My uncle Wilson was an amazing man. It was while visiting at his home that I was introduced to the love of a father. He always referred to me as Miss Kampala. The week he passed on was the week I’d planned to finally go look for him and visit. That evening I walked into my friend’s living room while scrolling through my phone only to find a facebook post from one of my cousins talking about him in the past tense. He had passed on that afternoon. The pain😭

Two years ago I woke up one morning determined to go check on my paternal grandpa in Nsambya Hospital. I had class all day but had been awake all night trying to ensure a class assignment was completed. As the day wore on I felt weak but attributed it to lack of sleep. A friend noticed and commented. I was being easily agitated. I generally wasn’t my usual fun self. By the end of class I was too worn out to envision myself driving across town. So I put off visiting Shwenkuru Kosiya to the next day which was a Sunday. At about 11pm a cousin posted on the family WhatsApp group “Shwenkuru no”. I had run out of time yet again 😭

This evening as I scrolled through WhatsApp statuses I notice pictures on my cousin’s status. I run there quickly just because I love to see what she’s saying. I love her, haven’t seen her in ages, she lives in Europe but also she posts a lot of sense😍. She’d posted a picture of her younger self with her mother; my aunt. After I’d commented on how those were the faces I remembered my heart suddenly started racing. I feared the worst… Seconds later her message came through “mum passed away this afternoon”

When my mother passed away 21 years ago Aunt Justine was one of those aunties that had been present. I called her last year around this time to thank her for being available whenever I needed her after my mother had passed on. We talked at length and I promised to visit her and take my sons to meet her.

This afternoon I run out of time again and it hurts sooooooo bad.

Rest well Auntie Justina. Till we meet again

My identity…

I spent the rest of my life after my stint in the village with my mother. We did life together. The older I grew the more in depth conversations we had. We developed quite a bond and I could tell her everything and anything. I kept nothing from her and I will not say she told me everything but from the depth with which she shared I learnt to give of myself fully when it came to friendships. I’m either in or out.

Like I had earlier mentioned my mother showed me off with every opportunity she got. There are doors that opened for me because I was Norah Twayaga’s daughter. When you came into my mother’s presence you most certainly got to know about me. In addition to showing me off mummy made sure I never lacked materially or even of her presence.

Mummy took me to boarding school when I was 9 years old but my Visiting Days were Visiting Weekends. She’d come in from Kampala on a Friday then she’d pick me up from school and we’d spend the weekend together and sleep in her hotel room. On Sunday evening she’d take me back to school. She was present.

As far as I was concerned my mother could solve just about any problem. She always had a solution… She knew someone who knew someone to get us or a friend or a family member what they needed. Coupled with this and several other abilities my mother in my eyes was invincible, perfect and her word to me was truth. If mummy said it would get done by all means consider it done. Then one day in November of 1999 all this changed. My world as I knew it started coming apart.

Mummy had promised to come visit me at the university with my baby cousin Enoc. That Sunday afternoon instead our maid came with mummy’s mechanic. This was wrong wrong wrong in all ways. First off no one but my mother ever drove her car. Secondly why was our house help here to see me without my mother? What was going on? I sensed the worst. I remember immediately hitting panic mode. My mother… Was she…? No…. It couldn’t be. I asked the maid where my mum was and if she was still alive to which she responded she was alive and well but had requested that I be taken to her. Where was she? Mengo Hospital… That wasn’t good news. My mother never fell sick. This was creepy in every way possible.

The drive to Mengo Hospital from Nkumba University was the longest drive ever. I literally run from the parking lot in Mengo to the ward. I burst into her room my eyes welling with tears. She took one look at me, smiled at me and asked “did you think I had died?” to which I responded yes. She then said to me “I can’t die. I know I have to take care of you.” That was all I needed to hear. My mother wasn’t going anywhere. All she wanted in her words was the person she loved the most close by to nurse her to quick recovery.

I walked into Mengo Hospital on Sunday 14th November 1999 and nursed my mother very sure she’d keep her word and walk out of that place alive and whole. On Sunday 21st November she was at her worst. I had taken that day off to fast for her health. By about 6pm mummy was asking who Desire was… Very funny not! I promised to remind her and guilt trip her of how she even forgot who I was. My cousins noticed she wasn’t well and insisted I go home that night since I had been spending the nights with her. That was the last time I saw her alive. She had failed to keep her word. She’d bailed out on me…

Family

I know we made it to Kabale by bus. I always looked forward to visiting with my grandparents… The only ones I knew at the time – my maternal grandparents. This time though despite having used the same route we were at a different home. It was equally busy with so many people hustling and bustling around. I don’t remember why my memory of that day starts at night and I also don’t really remember how my father and I were introduced. I remember though that as I run around in the dark under a dimly lit starry sky I kept bumping into my father and mother walking around talking. I would wave at them oblivious of what was going on or yet to come.

My mind… I still don’t remember how I was convinced or coerced but suddenly I lived in this homestead and I also had to move schools from Kampala Parents School to St. Maria Goretti Preparatory School. The difference in everything – that’s a story for another day.

Now… My mother leaving her only child with people other than her parents and siblings – that was a brave move. Anyway… Here I was adjusting to life in the village. No electricity, fetching water from the well, understanding Rukiga beyond responding to the greeting “agandi” because when they said “nigaahe” I was lost. 🤭🤭🤭

My paternal grandmother – bless her soul – made life as easy as could be. A bed was made for me in my grandparents bedroom. She ensured I bathed in warm water, she never let me go up the hills to the gardens, I didn’t graze the goats, I went to the well with 3 litre jerrycans while other children my age carried 10 litre jerrycans.

I don’t know what the rhythm was but mummy usually came to the village to take me to school. On this particular day an aunt who we shall call Vera and who I loved dearly had been asked to take me to school. She was fancy and stylish. I was looking forward to her arrival.

After pleasantries had been exchanged she settled in and a conversation was started. This conversation was between my grandmother, my fancy aunt, another aunt who lived in the village with us and an older cousin. I don’t recall the details of the conversation but it ended up being about my mother and in my presence these ladies insulted her and got me crying. They spoke for quite a while, laughing and making fun of my mother while I cried my little 9 year old eyes out. My other aunt in a bid to “console” me amid laughter would chip in “don’t listen to Aunt Vera, she’s bad”.As the sun started to set I remember grandma saying to them “you better quieten her before her grandfather returns or else we are finished”. Aunt Vera concluded her lecture and insult by saying “infact never call my brother your father and never call me your aunt”. How they got me to stop crying I’ll never know but by the time grandpa arrived from town I had long forgotten about this conversation. The scene replayed in my mind 6 years later in secondary school the day before visitation day.

A year or less later my ailing uncle was moved to the village to be nursed by his parents. My very few months with Uncle Yusuf were memorable. I had someone to talk to in English and he loved me to bits. One evening towards Christmas he told me about night angels. We were seated in the front of the house facing the hills. He pointed to the hills and convinced me that the angels would fly in and sing us Christmas carols and then be gone. How I looked forward to telling my mother about angels. All this while Uncle Yusuf had a bemused look on his face everytime I asked about the night angels because it was getting dark.

Hardly had we finished having dinner than there was a knock at the front door. A mob of adults and children gathered at the door and sang on key but in various decibels lots of Rukiga Christmas carols. In the corner of the sitting room was Uncle Yusuf roaring in laughter as he told me those were the night angels. When I went to school that next term Uncle Yusuf passed on. That was the first death that shattered my little heart.

Again I don’t remember how this holidaying in the village rhythm was broken but after a while… two years maybe I stopped spending my holidays in the village but certain memories and truths had been etched in my mind.

I met my grandfather’s mother – short beautiful woman, her eyesight was perfect, she walked upright but her hearing was dull. Imagine yelling at someone ever so loudly and her response was low toned, gentle and polite. Those were the conversations with Nyakwenkuru.

During my stay I learnt that I was dearly loved by my grandfather. I also learnt though that I was a child of controversy on my paternal side. There just seemed to be an argument or anger in certain circles and the relationships with some members to date are strained.

I learnt Rukiga and got to know my other family and created bonds. It wasn’t all rosy but yet again it wasn’t all sadness. It was a beautiful blend of colors and I’m thankful for those years.

Shamed?

It was a beautiful sunny day just after break time. I don’t remember whether we’d eaten oats or milk tea. I still remember the scent of that powdered milk tea served in the pink plastic cups.

This teacher – I don’t remember what subject he taught – but if memory serves me right everyone called him Uncle Stanley. I remember his name especially because that’s my father’s name too.

Earlier that year my mother had invited me into her bed. We had many of those moments especially when I was feeling unwell. But on this particular night I wasn’t sick. Mummy just felt it was time I guess to introduce me to my father. I don’t think I’d ever asked about him. Like I mentioned before life with my mother was so comfortable that I never thought about a daddy.

So on this moonlit night… It was a really beautiful calm night – mummy told me I had a father, he was alive and well but he had a family of his own and lived somewhere in Bushenyi. Then she mentioned his name and all I could remember was Stanley. My father’s surname is not your usual western Ugandan name. My grandparents thoughtfully picked out his name in thanksgiving to God for blessing them with a baby boy after their first one passed on.

Anyway, we never went back to the topic ever again and I don’t think it stirred any emotion in me. He was alive… OK… I was also okay. I honestly don’t remember how I felt after she told me about him.

Back to that sunny day in class… I was in P3A at Kampala Parents School next to Pride Theatre. The teacher read out names of children and we were called forward and given letters to take home to our parents. Our crime? We hadn’t paid school fees. I don’t know what light bulb lit up in Uncle Stanley’s head but he asked each of us to say our father’s names. My turn came and I was glad to quickly mention my father’s name. I wonder what my response would have been had mummy not shared my daddy story with me. I proudly responded “Stanley!”. Then he asked me for his other name and I was blank! 😯

Brilliant Uncle Stanley made a meal out of it and asked the class to laugh at me for not knowing my father’s surname.

I have no recollection of how this story ends but I know that on that bright sunny day in that primary three class a seed was planted and that seed would later inform some of the choices I later made in life.

Evening thoughts…

You don’t realise how much the things you saw and experienced as a child shape your outlook on life until much later in life.

I grew up the only child of a single mother. She loved on me, dotted on me and showed me off with every opportunity she got. She was proud of me and ensured I had access to the good life within her means but there was this one thing she couldn’t give me… Not that it was her doing. Life simply happened.

While I felt whole there was a hollow that I didn’t know existed and that hollow would grow larger after my mother’s passing.

I grew up surrounded by cousins, nieces and nephews who had both mummy and daddy and my mummy made sure I experienced a home with mummy and daddy through sleepovers. Deep down there was a longing, an emptiness but my mother – bless her!- made sure I was so preoccupied I never once asked her about my daddy until she volunteered this information when I was eight years old.

Looking back there seemed to be this secret prestigious society we for some reason couldn’t belong to. My mother couldn’t hang out with the married women and I didn’t have many friends with mummy and daddy. My little world of children raised by single mothers was all I knew.

I didn’t think much of it until I started to question my decisions and choices. As the days go by I’ll attempt to open the door into an attic I’ve kept closed for years but I think I’m now ready to go into and rummage through.

Bon voyage. Let’s do this.

Growth

I honestly joined Harvest Institute to be busy. I was redundant and most of my peers were doing something with their lives. Secondly I wanted to get my reading mojo back. I needed some sort of jumpstarting and indeed my reading excitement is back. Thirdly I wanted to be consistent in my blogging after all my call was to blog about and show off Uganda. Beautiful facts only.

All was going well till I got to the book writing moment. Eh! Be it fact or fiction I couldn’t go beyond a page about Uganda. I didn’t want to be an atlas or another boring geography class. I quickly abandoned Uganda and decided to write about another of my passions; motherhood and my mother.

Looks like God wasn’t yet done with me. Toward our November class I started getting angry and emotional about bad marriages and I didn’t realise until that November class that God was leading me out into very unfamiliar territory. By the end if the class I knew where I was headed.

If I said to you that I wasn’t scared I would be lying. If I told you I am excited to be stepping in that direction I’d still be lying.

I am sure of this one thing though… God wants the marriage script changed to reflect Him and His love for the church.

Early in the year I started baking these very yummy oatmeal cookies and I kept assuring my friends that I would t go into cake baking because I’m not artistic plus I couldn’t handle the pressure.

In the middle of the year I join a group of cooks and bakers and then the flood gates were flung open.

I have been baking a minimum of 2 cakes every week and I am loving it.

A lot can happen in 12 months…

I can say confidently that I have grown and there is no turning back!