Nothing Is Normal Today

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A good black dress for a widow costs 37,000 shillings. That is if you import it. For another 3,000 shillings you get a black veil. But she didn’t want a veil because she didn’t want to cover her face. She wanted his parents to see, not her pain, for she didn’t feel any pain for the bastard, but her stoicism, her final triumph. She hoped for them to see that she had out-survived the tyrant.

So, instead of another 3,000, she opted for a black beret which made her look not like a widow, but a member of the civil rights group, the Black Panthers. She wanted to go for the strong and resolute look, not the bereaved and bewildered look commonly seen on widows.

Her teenage son wore a black suit. His uncle bought him the Mage Male suit off Amazon for another 10,000 shillings. It didn’t fit right, so someone took it to a lady with a sewing machine who pinched it at the shoulders and hips so that when he wore it, he looked defeated. Her daughter wore a simple black dress with laced shoulders for 6000 bob and because she’s 14 and she was at the stage where they wore whatever they wanted, she wore her black vans with red soles, which her grandmother growled at disapprovingly.

They all wore sunglasses because Kakamega was bright and sunny on the day of the burial. She didn’t pay a single cent for this funeral couture. A funeral committee had been set up, even though insurance had taken care of most of the big bills but culture is culture. It gave old men a reason to sit around under a tree and make decrees over the dead for the living. They kept referring to him as ‘our son’ even though “he must have stepped in the village a total of ten times in the 15 years we were married.” They spoke about him like they knew him and that they understood his final wishes, an irony, seeing as they disregarded his wish for cremation. “Nobody is going to burn my son.” His mother – a well-to-do woman who claimed to have worked at KLM in the 60s ‘before black people were allowed to work at an airline, let alone fly in one’ – said with finality. “I didn’t care what they did to his body, to be honest,” she said. “They could have strapped it on a tree and left it there and I wouldn’t have minded.”

“The night before the burial, my son and I went and stood by the freshly dug grave. It looked like a hole. It looked like somewhere you could have buried a dog that had been run over by a car. Or a cat. And it made me really reflect on life,” she said. “Here was a man who had lived a very flamboyant life and left behind a sizable fortune, but in the end he was being laid on his back in a hole with ragged edges. People say it doesn’t matter, you are dead, but I think the dead must know how they are treated in death. I think my husband wanted cremation because it felt like an easier way out. A more sophisticated way out. Not being left in a small rectangular hole to rot. And if he indeed knows and disapproves of the hole he was buried in then he isn’t resting easily. And maybe he shouldn’t.”

Their romance started in the office. She was an intern and he was a partner at the firm he had started with two other gentlemen. He had studied in the UK so he spoke English through his nose. “He had a presence with his wide shoulders and deep voice,” she recalled. “When he walked into a room, you would immediately be drawn to him. He wasn’t tall but he acted tall. He acted like he was 6’6.” He was also charming and intelligent and on top of this all, he had dimples. Devastating dimples.

“Like Sakaja’s?” I asked because apparently his dimples drive women into an asylum.

“Oh Sakaja doesn’t have dimples.” She rolled her eyes. “He had dimples. Deep dimples.”

“You could hide a coin there.”

“Oh yeah.”

While he was a city boy, she had grown up at a place called Manyani, which sounds like a place with a lot of monkeys or where lots of monkey business happens. She was mesmerised by him. Taken by him. “He wore very expensive looking suits and left a trail of cologne in his wake. Office girls swooned over him.”

She admired him from afar, like a painting you knew you wouldn’t afford. She said, “I didn’t even think he noticed me, seeing as I was just a village girl and there were girls in the office who were worthy of his admiration, Nairobi girls, you know.”

“How did he notice you?”

“I’m pretty, excuse me!” She cried.

“Of course, of course,” I said quickly, stepping out of the path of the oncoming train, “I meant, how did he eventually notice you.”

[Note; she’s a bit feisty, a bit intimidating. The type that tells someone, ‘ebu hold my beer’ and then starts a fight.]

“He didn’t notice me immediately. First he ignored me. This thing men do where they completely make you invisible and then one day they say something that completely disorients you like, ‘Hi, how come you never wear that blue dress of yours anymore?’ and you are like, wait, what? Is he talking to me? He can’t possibly be talking to me? I’m a piece of furniture before him. But wait, he is actually addressing me! My God. Is he addressing me? Like a human being? Oh no, this is not right. And he knows my dresses? Those old things that I bought in Gikomba like any university student. So when he talks to you like that, it disorients you completely and you end up sleeping with him.”

I roared with laughter. I could have ended that interview right there. Why continue while we are ahead?

They got married in a small intimate wedding at a private beach with a handful of people seated on white seats. The breeze carried their vows. They were barefoot. Trouble started immediately after the wedding because, “the very same day when we landed back from our honeymoon in Dubai, he flew out again to the coast for what he said was work but what I later learnt was to meet his girlfriend who later became the mother of his other children who I have nothing against because you don’t choose your father.”

“Or your mother,” I said.

“Yeah.” I could tell she wanted to punch me in the mouth because I was talking too much. Ha-ha.

After their son was born he asked her not to work, at least until their son went to school. “He offered to pay me a stipend each month to be a mother. I was serious about motherhood and I wanted to bond with my son so I quit where I was working. But I quit at a time when I was supposed to have been getting my career off the ground, you know a crucial time in anybody’s career journey. What that meant was that after six years, I had lost so much ground I couldn’t go back to do what I studied. I had literally thrown my career away to be a mother and stay-at-home wife. I don’t even regret marrying him. I regret giving up my career.”

When his daughter was born he became a completely different father. It’s almost like the daughter evoked a new spirit in him. He was more present, more sensitive. He showered her with gifts. He talked about her a lot. She could never do wrong in his eyes. “If my son wanted his dad to do something, he knew to ask his sister to engage with the dad because he was more likely to honour requests from her than him,” she said. “His own son hated him.”

People use the word ‘hate’ carelessly: I hate rush-hour traffic; I hate matatu drivers, but what they mean is that they are frustrated. Hate is a very strong dislike for something. Like you can hate the smell that plumbers, internet technicians, handymen, leave in your house, on your furniture and curtains when they remove their shoes. And sometimes because you don’t want hate in your heart, you tell them, it’s fine, don’t remove your shoes.

“How does a son hate his father?” She posed that question to herself. “Well, most people think that it’s the mothers who incite their sons to hate their fathers and yes, of course there are women who feed their sons stuff about their fathers but that only works up to a certain point when the sons are children but children grow up and turn into men and we all know how men root for other men. They will start challenging the things you told them about their dad and if their dad is innocent they will make their own decision about their father. It happens. In my case my husband didn’t need help in that department.”

On his ninth birthday he told his son that he would take him to the motocross that afternoon. The boy loved cars and he especially loved cars going round and round. He left home at 11am to run an errand. “The boy was excited. Extremely. So by 12 he was all dressed up. He couldn’t even eat. He said, ‘we will eat with dad’. At 2pm he hadn’t come back. He told me, ‘call dad’. So I called him and he didn’t pick. At 3pm, I told him, Luke, have something to eat at least. He said, ‘No, I will eat with dad’.”

So he sat in the living room in his shoes waiting for his father. Each time he heard a car pull up he’d run to the window and look out. “At 4pm he called and said he was on his way. I didn’t give the boy the message because I’m a mother, I can tell a disaster about to happen, instead I told him that perhaps dad had run into an important meeting. By 6pm the boy was still in his shoes and he was now weeping silently in his bedroom. At 8pm he had stopped crying but he was completely crushed by disappointment. You haven’t seen a child crushed by his parents. You haven’t. It’s ugly to watch. By the time he went to bed my husband had not come back and had not called. What really killed me was that even with this disappointment, my son was still hopeful about his dad coming through. He said, maybe dad fell sick. Maybe dad will take me next Sunday. Him not showing up was cruel to the child, but how my son reacted to this was even gut wrenching for me. This undying hope in his father. And my son gave him so many chances, a million chances and he kept dashing them and this stuff builds and builds and it finally becomes hate.”

The abuse, when it came, started like a reluctant rain. There were signs, the dark hanging clouds. His moodiness. His snappiness. His irritation. Then came the distant rumbling thunder. The shouting. The banging of doors. The intimidation; how during fights he would come very close to her and stand inches from her face and bark at her. How one time he slapped the wall next to her face and for days her ears rang.

Then came the rain.

“We had come from his mom’s place for her birthday,” she said, “He felt like I had gone against him before his mom when I said I wanted to go back to work. He felt that his authority had been challenged before his mother. He started sulking even before we left his mother’s and when we got in the car we started arguing until we got home. We were still arguing as we prepared to go to bed and at some point he walked into the bathroom where I was brushing my teeth and slapped me hard across my face. I almost swallowed the toothbrush.” She flinched at the memory.

“The first time, you can’t believe it. You are stunned.” She continued, “you can’t even cry. In fact, in the morning it doesn’t even feel like it happened until you bring your hands to your face. Your body blocks it. I couldn’t leave the house for days because I thought people could tell. I felt humiliated, belittled. Unlike many women who are abused I told my mom immediately, okay, maybe the second time it happened and she couldn’t believe he could do anything like that because everybody loved him, he was generous and funny and charming. She asked, “Is there anything you did to provoke him?”

The marriage took a different course altogether.

“I shrunk,” she said, “I literally shrunk. I shrunk so that I could not offer a big target for his abuse, which were mostly emotional.” She slowly started staying away from friends, from family, she developed migraines that wouldn’t go away, she filled rivers with her tears until she finally hit rock bottom and idealised suicide or killing him. She started praying for his death. “Like really kneeling and telling God, ‘please God, kill this man for me. Let him not wake up. Do me this favour’.”

On the night before he was buried, her mother in law sat her down in her bedroom and said. “My daughter, listen here. I’m sure you know that my son has another woman with two children. Well, they will be coming tomorrow for the burial. I understand how you must feel about that, but I want you to act mature because this is an important occasion and we don’t want to scandalise it.”

“Scandalise is the word she used,” she says. “Her son’s whole life was a scandal! I don’t know what she thought I’d do, beat up his baby momma? I don’t think his mom understood how little to nothing I was invested in the funeral. I only attended because I was expected to attend. I didn’t care if a harem of his women showed up with their children. On the day of the funeral I remember my daughter looking at the woman in a widow’s dress and her two children and whispering, ‘Mom, who are those?’ I told her I would tell her later. Kids know these things and later when I told them, my daughter seemed hurt and confused but my son asked, ‘do you think there are more?’ And I really laughed.”

She skipped the eulogy. “ Why say things I didn’t mean? The man lying there was a monster. He was cruel. He was mean. His people, these people who called him, ‘my son,’ didn’t know him like that, so why spoil it for them? He was a monster who was buried in a great elegant golden coffin.” His daughter cried a lot when he died and when he was lowered to the ground but she never saw the son shed a tear. “I asked him, how do you feel, Luke? And he said, ‘I don’t know but I don’t feel sad. Is that normal ?’ I think I told him, ‘nothing is normal today. Nothing has been normal for a while’.”

After he was buried, they sat on the verandah and had tea. “I felt relief seeing him buried under soil. I felt like I had buried a very sad and wasteful chapter of my life. I was free as a person, but I realised that my children would not be free of this man. Fathers really fuck up their children. I didn’t know what damage he had done to my son, what kind of a man he would be. How would he relate with women? He carried great hurt with him and I knew that I needed to send him to therapy before he went and hurt other women, like his father.”

“What’s your memory of him when you close your eyes and picture him?”

He had come back home late from drinking. They hadn’t been intimate in two or so months. He shook her up and said, “why are you not behaving like a wife?” She, sleepy, confused, asked, “what, how am I behaving?” He said she wasn’t giving him his conjugal rights. By this time, his girlfriend was an open secret. She knew that they had a child together, a boy. He’d frequently disappear over some weekends. That night he demanded sex and when she said she was on her period, he accused her of lying and he demanded to check. She said, that’s ridiculous. He pried open her legs and discovered she wasn’t on her period. He was furious. He called her a whore and all manner of names that were a derivative of a whore. Then he forced himself on her. She lay there numb. “I couldn’t even cry because by this point nothing he did to me shocked me.”

“What I remember of him when I close my eyes is him looking between my legs discovering I wasn’t on my period and seeing rage rise in his face like, his face just filling up with anger like a tube filling with dark liquid.[Pause] That’s what I will always remember of him.”

**

One warm evening her husband left his office and took the elevator to the basement parking lot. He had on a dark blue suit and a blue tie. A guard patrolling the basement parking lot stumbled on his body. He saw his leg first and thought, what is that guy doing under the car? He was found dead between two cars. His car keys were in one hand and the other seemed to have been reaching for his phone in his trouser pocket. The coroner ruled it as heart failure.

“Yeah, that’s what the autopsy revealed, but sometimes I wonder if I killed him.” She said, “Because many days I really prayed that he dies in his sleep.”

***

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163 Comments
    1. No they don’t. Everyone’s been hurt. Everyone has trauma. They just choose to be assholes who don’t prioritize healing,

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  1. This was quite sad!
    I feel for her and the children. Yes, fathers do really mess up their children! More times than perhaps we care to count. By the way Jackson Biko, what so wrong with using the phrase “mess up”?

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  2. “…at some point, he walked into the bathroom where I was brushing my teeth and slapped me hard across my face. I almost swallowed the toothbrush.” I don’t know why I laughed at someone’s agony. Biko, are you sure that’s what she said?

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  3. Sad how they’re so many stories of abuse..same script.There’s a boy child crisis&there are not enough men to mentor them.
    I also believe,showing up for anyone means a whole lot.

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  4. Wow.. Wow.. To the married.. Be good to each other…just be good humans.. And parents can we raise a better generation.. This hurt and broken chain of little humans should end.. God help us

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  5. Aaah! Never promise kids something if you won’t deliver. Growing up I had trust issues, and maybe I still do. All because a grownup promised a boy something but failed repeatedly. It’s heart breaking.
    It’s sad but maybe God answered her prayers finally. Always a good read Don Biko.
    Here’s another one also but but not morbid.
    https://letstalksasa.blogspot.com/2023/02/miracle-baby.html

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  6. Deep…
    ‘ nothing is normal today, Nothing has been normal for a while ‘

    https://thewallflower254.wordpress.com/2022/06/03/this-voices/

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  7. “A good black dress for a widow costs 37,000 shillings.”—>It looks like an accounting class over here.
    “Fathers really fuck up their children.”—> Nyef nyef!! Any bad parent does!
    “I felt relief seeing him buried under soil.”—> Really ma’am? Says alot about you.
    “Well, most people think that it’s the mothers who incite their sons to hate their fathers”—> Well, my name is Most-people.

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    1. Says a lot about her, he cheated on the first day they came from honeymoon, he raped her while insulting her at the same time, he beat her up. Honestly how did you expect her to feel?

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    2. Did you miss the part where she was being abused daily ama we aren’t reading the same story? Do you know how many people die by the hand of their abusive partner every day? Those are very normal thoughts to have for someone who has been through the hell that she has been on. Before you judge someone, always put themselves in their shoes and ask yourself how you would feel.

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    3. Your condescending attitude shows you’re either an abuser or a potential abuser hiding behind a keyboard.
      You are too personal and too vile, which is an abnormal response to someone else’s story, because you havevno authority to discredit another person’s experience and the feelings that emanate from that.

      Take a seat and examine yourself or the same will happen to you. But I hope God does not give you the opportunity to torture another person’s decently-bred daughter in the name of marriage or a relationship. PeriodT.

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      1. Enda kaskie vibaya na huko. Even witches do not wish their victims death. The story is clear, the man was a devil while the lady was an angel. All marital-problem stories narrated by the lady are like that.

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        1. Why not write your own piece where abusers like this one( probably you too) are glorified by the victims as well!!! Narc! Am sure Biko would really appreciate the other side of the story.

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  8. Aaah! Never promise kids something if you won’t deliver. Growing up I had trust issues, and maybe I still do. All because a grownup promised a boy something but failed repeatedly. It’s heart breaking. It’s sad but maybe God answered her prayers finally. Always a good read Don Biko. Here’s another one also but but not morbid.

    https://letstalksasa.blogspot.com/2023/02/miracle-baby.html

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  9. The battered wife dilemma; more like.
    There are days I imagine how God receives our diverse prayers and how he sorts them in order of how they will be answered. Does He pick them the way we pick tomatoes or avocados at the open air market?

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  10. Wow. Tears flowed from my eyes midway through this story. Was i crying? I do not know. All i know is i had tears. And i felt sad for Fathers and Sons..or should i say ‘sad fo the boy child’.

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  11. Let her shed her hate of the man. He is already dead. Good riddance at best. May she heal and foster healing to those that the tornado has left behind.

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  12. Well, until Men learn to write down their memoirs, marital stories told by women will always depict men as monsters. Even when they were 70% good.

    GBV is a serious issue, and should never happen in any marriage, but women aren’t saints either.

    That the lady celebrates his husbands death is a bothersome thought. How long was he fed on steel wool?

    Nowadays, I always side with the FEAR WOMEN bandwagon. They are not people!

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    1. 70 percent good but this guy is beating her black and blue, raping her and having extra-marital relationships that can possibly bring home an STD?

      It’s a frightful situation to be, but until you’ve lived it, don’t be so quick to judge.

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      1. I agree Carol, no one deserves to live through GBV. She could have packed her things and left.

        But she stayed, and my hunch is that she actually plotted and knows what killed him. She comes short of admitting it.

        She now enjoys her husbands wealth while dancing on his grave.

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    2. Too bad we couldn’t hear his side of the story.

      Also wondering, if it was that bad, couldn’t she have left or there were other things holding her back?

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      1. Just re-read the story to try get a different perspective. I didn’t get any, but picked a few key pointers:

        Final triumph > She was benefitting from his death.

        Didn’t contribute a single cent > but ended up spending Kes 56,000 on their clothes with the man’s money. Wow

        Didn’t care if they strapped his body on a tree.

        Grave looked more suitable for burying a dog killed in an accident > Really?

        His daughter cried a lot > Seems to loathe the daughter in her descriptions and praise the son. Why?

        Denied him conjugal for 2 months through lies > Why wouldn’t he cheat then?

        Sudden death > with no history of illness.

        She is a candidate for murder.

        Fear Women

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  13. Wow. sometimes I let myself forget how serious the business of choosing a spouse is, or how we should not lightly consider the idea of marriage, then I read this. Thank you Biko.

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  14. I wonder what happens in between as love turns to solid hate.

    “Yeah, that’s what the autopsy revealed, but sometimes I wonder if I killed him.” She said. Whew!! That line has me gasping…

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    1. Only women have capacity to HATE! Hate passionately and make it their businesses. This lady needs to heal first.
      Are women capable of loving or all they do is reciprocate love? What happens when the storm comes and there is nothing to reciprocate?

  15. So sad..If only men knew the power they wield in their children’s lives and especially sons then they would endeavor to do the right things and parent them well.We shouldn’t be fathering kids if we aren’t ready to be a real father!

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  16. It is very clear that his death was a good riddance. And to quite a number of widows, the death of their husbands opens a new chapter of peace in their lives.

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    1. Well, I reckon being a father myself, this feels like a good attack on men in general. True, there are violent and abusive men. True, some women do get reprieve after those abusive spouses pass on. But the same applies to the other side of the coin.
      This would have been better if you said ‘this father fucked up his children/son.’
      It’s funny how you chose 1 instance of disappointment to a 9 year old and made it the foundation of his negligence. Men are human and will not always meet promises. Its also funny that we don’t learn what kept him away.
      The truth is there are good fathers out there, and the ladies that are cheering you on haven’t been lucky to find one. And quite frankly, who would want to date/wife them if this is what they think of men? I wouldn’t.

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      1. Did you want her to give 10 examples for you to be able to capture the magnitude of abuse or did you not read the part where she says the man kept on repeating the same mistake of disappointing the son while playing favorites with the daughter?
        If you study about narcissists, you’ll learn that this guy was a classical narcissist. They have a golden child who they use to create disharmony in the family. Narcs have a false sense of reality amd most likely he mistreated the son coz he was the only other man in that family unit with the potential of taking the wife’s attention. A narcissist’s mind is like a toddler’s mind, so they don’t see their kids as kids….and so for them the competition is valid. Additionally, good is relative…..but there are critical areas a spouse and a parent should never fail for them to to remain fit for the honor due for such roles. It’s absolutely not a simple mathematical percentage.

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        1. Everything you posted was spot on.

          Its funny how men felt personally attacked by this article and afronted and yet she was sharing her story. The way she knows it. I saw several comments about people leaving if they are unhappy. Can you imagine leaving a man who has the audacity to even check and confirm if your on period and go the hell on. Without any consideration for your consent. Especially when he has disarmed you of your job, your family, your friends. We must have forgotten that when it comes to rich men, you dont even carry the kids. You leave them. Imagine negotiating seeing the kids with someone who doesnt care about you really. This woman must have felt trapped, and for her to even get to the point where she was just praying for his death. In her mind, it was the only way out.

          When i think of african marriages i shudder. In other continents, someone will hit you once and your out and he has a record. In our society, even your parents think that he really didnt beat you, I mean nothing broke. As if your spirit is nothing. There is actually nothing normal this days.

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  17. Indeed, nothing is normal today under the scorching sun. Your legs being pried open when you aren’t ovulating can be demeaning.

    What happened to foreplay before taking the holy communion? There was no marriage there. The emotional torture she endured was perplexing.

    3
  18. How we relate as a couple is of essence how children, By the way what triggered the man in the first place. I mean what messed his otherwise great trajectory that they both had in the first place?

  19. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger; may you find inner peace because wueh, your married life was so rocky.

    1. Keep in mind, the abusive goner killed the lady countless times her spirit…her soul. It is better to die one day than to be tortured for every day 20 years by the person closest to you (spouse) the person who swore to love you and protect you. The kids who are also broken by watching their father abuse their mother and brother. Even the sister, who has been manipulated to be the father’s “golden child” has been conditioned for abuse, in that she can turn out to be a narcissist like her dad or become prey for men like her dad. Either outcome is nasty as sje cannot maintain healthy relationships. So she’ll need a lot of psychological work to become a well-adjusted human (or she might never become one and age miserably).

      3
  20. I get sad when i hear or read about rape in marriages, i often wonder about the characters of men who do not respect their partners, the mother’s of their children enough to accord the decency. Is that stripped away in/by marriage?

  21. “Him not showing up was cruel to the child, but how my son reacted to this was even gut wrenching for me.” This is the worst experience for a mother to watch your child being crushed by unfulfilled promises made by a father. Why promise and not honor your promise to your child? Was there a gunpoint on your head?

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  22. My father always told me.. When a man starts verbally abusing you, walk before it becomes physical.. I am glad she is peaceful and I pray the kids will be alright.

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  23. It’s simple! Rich dude wedded office lass ‘beneath’ him in class, thinking he had a village lass to bear babies and stay home. He continued to cheat. She grew cold towards him. He got ‘comfort’ in a second woman/ family. He adored main daughter (that’s why she was broken at his funeral) neglected first son. Mother nurtured that neglect into hate, even as she ‘froze’ the hubby. He got a bit abusive. She couldn’t divorce him coz she now redundant in her career. She fed him mercury in fish pole pole till he went cardiac. He Dead, She Celebrate, he buried, she’s now a Black Beret rich widow.
    She call Biko, and cannot resist ‘confession’ (disguised as prayers, as Kenyans like to do, hapo mwisho).
    Elementary, Dr. Wa Nahashon.

    5
  24. If only we would normalize leaving when it doesn’t work anymore, love is a beautiful thing but we humans complicate it soo much to a point abuse is experienced. Praying she heals and her children heal too, this is too traumatic even for the children..

  25. Well, I reckon being a father myself, this feels like a good attack on men in general. True, there are violent and abusive men. True, some women do get reprieve after those abusive spouses pass on. But the same applies to the other side of the coin.
    This would have been better if you said ‘this father fucked up his children/son.’
    It’s funny how you chose 1 instance of disappointment to a 9 year old and made it the foundation of his negligence. Men are human and will not always meet promises. Its also funny that we don’t learn what kept him away.
    The truth is there are good fathers out there, and the ladies that are cheering you on haven’t been lucky to find one. And quite frankly, who would want to date/wife them if this is what they think of men? I wouldn’t.

  26. I read this fighting tears. Not because i relate to this story, not at all, but because i have a dear person going through the same. My heart bleeds for her.

  27. I feel so sorry for this woman and her son. In the daughter’s eyes, I’m sure he was a saint since us girls view our Dads with rose-tinted spectacles unless they hurt us directly. My opinion may sound a bit harsh but she had the option of leaving him and finding peace in her life much earlier instead of taking abuse and fostering so much hate for him that she now has to deal with for the rest of her life. Yes she didn’t have a job but women have the ability to hustle just as much as men do and she had the option of suing him for child maintenance. Call me a coward but when someone shows me the first red flag I run like the wind. My mental, emotional, physical and spiritual safety and soundness are way more important than any relationship. It takes so long to heal from some of these things I wonder why we allow them to happen to us.

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  28. Thanks Biko. This story sounds a lot like my mum’s. Dad plummeted her on an almost daily basis. He died when I was 10, and me, his daughter, sighed with relief. My mum had a very beautiful life after his death, taking care of us and herself. I have never wanted marriage really. I am a village girl and stories of women who would beat their wives in my village were way too many. About 80 percent of households in my village were physically abusive homes, with women being hit by their husbands. I pray that someday my society no longer normalises and accepts this issue.

    6
  29. I have prayed the exact prayers of death over a man I have kids with because of cruelty as recent as yesterday. I even asked myself if I really meant it and the resounding YES!! in my head was just a finality of a broken spirit. I asked God to just take this person away even in his sleep so I can just breathe with my sons. I asked for death by a heart attack. I’ve asked for death to visit him in all ways possible because of how cruel he is. The same way people ask about mothers bad-mouthing the dads to their sons? well, I have never but I believe my sons would turn out just like yours full of resentment towards the dad once they are of age. here is a man cut from the same clothe as the one in the story only that this one is not physically violent because he would never be stupid enough to leave a trace of doubt for the society.

    Men listen Up: As an adult, no one has time for cruelty. Just be a kind person even if things don’t work out with the woman you have children with because their prayers and tears never go unanswered for sure I believe that man’s death was an answered prayer by God. period.

    4
    1. We grew up with an abusive father…never once did we know of his character until we were of age (teenagers)…I remember vividly praying for their separation when I was in high school.
      Truth be told..our dad left all seven of us with our mum and we have never seen her happier than in the last couple of years…and oooh…his sons really really resent him…I keep on praying for deliverance from this pain…I feel the lady
      Healing to you and your kids❤

  30. Sigh, i relate to this one hundred percent… only that am praying God not to allow me carry a bitter heart. I want him to live, long enough to witnes my kids and I prosper. That will be the most satisfying revenge. May God hear me.

    1
  31. Reminds me how one woman said to her friends after the burial of her her husband ” He’s such a fool, he doesn’t even know he is dead”.

  32. waah what a sad one for this lady and the son. It happens sometimes to many women too who dont speak about what they have been through. The writing at another level.

    1
  33. The things some of us women go through in the hands of this so called husband’s…..But what hurts me more is what they do to this their children.

  34. Yeah, that’s what the autopsy revealed, but sometimes I wonder if I killed him.” She said, “Because many days I really prayed that he dies in his sleep

    Gaaaiii

  35. This is so vividly painful, so telling and so beautifully written. It teaches, it admonishes, it invokes. Thank you for sharing with us your gifts at story telling

    2
  36. No one deserves such not even the devil
    Enjoy your freedom, find yourself again.
    Show love to your son and daughter.

    1
  37. The picture of his son sitting in the living room all dressed up and ready waiting for dad is stuck in my head. Dear good Lord, help me never do that to my son.

    4
  38. This lady deserved better. Men who hit women are usually the ones cheating out there and bringing their insecurities to the people around them.

    2
  39. Hi Biko,

    Great story as always…There is a very thin line between love and hate and alot of people make such stupid mistakes thinking they can get away it however the evil that men do lives after them…Emotional abuse is the worst kind of abuse you can put someone through especially your spouse,it changes alot of things,nothing is normal again.

  40. Being in an abusive relationship is like being sick …. It is never as easy as just leaving , I wish more people realise this one day … it is like a mental illness.. .. I used to wonder why these people don’t just leave till it was my turn. Healing is a long journey, but you’ll make it.

    2
  41. It is a home that make men and it is the same home that break men. We have broken men running families. They haven’t got healed, or have never confronted the demons of their life. Money and women may be an escape from the reality of the past, but reality has a way of catching up with us later in life. That man was a broken man, who didn’t understand even the smallest things like honoring his son’s promise is a world of difference. Being there is just enough. The son might have hated him, but he should be mentored, because the man he hated is his father, and the genetic compass tend to go around, and he might find himself in the same shit as his father. He needs mentorship and healing process to make him a better man. And I thank God for the mother realizing that, because broken men come from broken families and tend to bring up broken homes too. May the children find healing.

    5
  42. A dark read. Bleeding adults bring forth damaged kids. And the cycle continues.

    May the world heal. May the children heal.

    1
  43. … leaving his son in such a mess hurt me the most.
    Because this is about black dresses occasion let’s go beneath the rubbles
    https://prodigitaladdress.blogspot.com/2023/02/beneath-rubbles.html

  44. That mad deserved that death. I know this pain because for 5 years I prayed for my ex husband to die but he dint so I left. Am glad this one got her prayers answered.

  45. How awesome! Captivating from para 1. Relatable, believable and very well told. Scene of the idiot checking if she was on her period was creative genius (like what lunatic does that?!)

  46. A sad story beautifully and vividly narrated… the son’s long wait for a day at motocross just crushed my heart… how hard is it to make a call and cancel? May he find healing and true love from our Heavenly Father… all of them should go for counselling… wueh, too much trauma

  47. This one’s need Pricilla wa Imani to close with a proper mbinja. Too many emotions. Biko, it’s true the best description pain & hurt is liked to an on coming train…. Only victory in this case not been achieved in death because nobody wins the damage is done. Victory can only be achieved in healing and there is no healing without forgiveness. The journey has just began one that will lead to redemption or destruction she too need therapy all of them.

  48. I always look forward to Tuesday because of biko his stories light ma day he inspires me and my admiration is unlimited thanks for the food wirk

  49. Resentment is like taking poison and hoping it kills the other person, Nelson Mandela once said. It really happened in her case but she really needs to empty that bitterness.

    1
  50. Biko!!!

    When men and women don’t deal with their inner demons, this is what we get. I wouldn’t be shocked if his mom went through such (where she told the wife to avoid scandal meaning as a woman keep your pain out of the public domain). It became normal for this guy to treat his wife the same.

    All in all I believe that individuals should make effort to get out of the mental agony library of hurts and purpose to live a happy life.

    May she and her children find their selves. May they go past the mental agony library into the purposeful arena of life. Amen!

  51. Nice read Biko.. Being married I feel that the story is one sided.. Let me clear first, true I hate GBV, But in marriage a lot happens behind closed doors.. the provocations, the verbal abuse and whatnots.. I sometimes work far away from my family in nrb, and one time I came for the wknd – on Saturday, brought my dirty laundry at least to be washed, I realized on sunday at 3 they weren’t washed.. I asked why, and was told to wash them myself… That audacity…if I retaliated with a bark would that make me bad..
    Anyway, praying for someone to die, that was a low for that lady. If the kitchens gets hot, walk out for breeze.. Now she’s enjoying his fortune, what a great turn of events.

    1
    1. hey man, how can you move dirty clothes from one district to another. please buy a machine.
      that is disrespectful. your wife was right

      1
  52. The lady might have rushed to get married to that guy out of sheer excitement of the attractiveness of that guy… she didn’t probably take her time to know this guy deeper. The guy pried on her Naivety and her desire to be noticed by her colleagues that she is dating the *dimple guy* big mistake,.. Finally God answered her prayers. This is one hell of tragic story but that’s just one negative ending story…. Pretty sure there are so many other marriage where people complement each other and men don’t slap their women on the face… and the woman don’t wear a stoic faces when their husbands die because those *dead* men were their pillars

  53. Goodness; what a dark piece. A cautionary tale- is it a parable??? Lesson number- do not marry the rich handsome office Casanova- your life will end in premium tears. Lesson number two if you do marry said Casanova- do not stay home after maternity leave; go back to work; Your prince could change into a demon. Lesson number three – do not kill the future of your children by putting up with emotional and physical abuse. Run. After running go for therapy- and seriously do self love on children and self.
    Again what a beautiful raw , dark piece- it caught me- By the way the abuser can be either gender going by what we read see and read on the news.

    1
  54. This is heart rending. I literally felt her disgust and pain. I wonder if he treated the other woman the same way. All in all, I am glad she is free from the emotional turmoil. May the kids turn out alright.

  55. “The first time, you can’t believe it. You are stunned.” She continued, “you can’t even cry…. oh how i relate to this statement…………and even wehn he frces himself on you……………oh……… nothing has been normal to me ever since either, I am glad I left…..