Mother and Son

two warriors who survived the same war

Nov 25, 2025

PS: Reading this do not slightly think to diagnose either of us. We are sick.

Besides my introduction to a cultic belief in people, traditions, and a religiosity that is far from what I believe today, my childhood was brimming with chaos and pandemonium, now that I look back. I saw the post below on X, and I could totally relate to an upbringing that is just as much a race against Kipchoge as it is against Omanyala. I had a mother who, in my opinion, was tyrannical. As you will soon read, my younger brother would differ on that point.

When I was young my mum detested me, she would blow up my mistakes out of proportion unlike when my siblings would do the same mistake. My parents used to say they don’t have a son (I simply didn’t exist for them) my mum would say our last born is their only hope. It hurt, made me violent in school. I once told my mum the day I will walk thru that door they won’t ever see me again, she said you can leave even now. That resolve became my driving force, in school I flipped my grades getting 20% in math to 80% (it was so abrupt that they said I started cheating in exams), when I started working everyone used to wonder why I work my fucking ass off like there no tomorrow but I knew I needed to be super independent. My mum has apologised many times and I forgave her but the pain always comes back when I see similar stories. I feel you, best advice is to suck it up and level up, use it to your advantage and I would highly recommend a therapist. Hope this helps.
— Nelson Amenya on X

MOTHER IN ELDORET (Birth - Mar 2010)

1. The Honest Dollar and the Tyrant’s Shadow

From a young age—and as old as I am now—I have appreciated my father so much. If there is a man who exemplifies much of what my selfishness has not allowed me to be, it must be him. For Dad loved us so much that he took risks with his own life for us to have a pleasant one: good schools, medication, and diet. When he made his yearly visits for two weeks in December, we ate margarine and bread for once. Otherwise, bread and butter were luxuries that were not in our neighborhood, let alone our home. We lived in places where we would share detergent in spoonful measurements and lend salt to one another at times. We lived well. The father of our home pulled in a dollar or two. Even though it wasn’t the big top dollar, it was honest work.

My mother, on the other hand—who was at that time five years jobless and had seven years of joblessness remaining in her—put in honest work to look for a livelihood. I am a poor judge of where she must have been psychologically. She would water the landlord’s garden. Her profession was teaching, but her occupation was loosely pegged to that. When I got to school and started learning, she joined me as a teacher in that school not long after. My younger brother was born around that period because I remember when she was about to give birth to him, I was left in the custody of one of my school teachers, who doubled as my mother’s friend.

2. The Severance: A Slap on My Knuckles

I did not think my relentless pains would start this early into this writing. Speaking of my brother’s birth, I was unaware of my mom’s pregnancy for the longest time. I was clueless, as you would expect a child to be. That fateful day, at around 5 p.m., I saw too many people flock inside the compound as a beige vehicle—with its parking lights on—faced toward the gate. I saw ladies drag her out as she needed bipedal aid. We used to be just the two of us. I thought it wise to hold her hand as she was being taken from me. With no one to comfort me, I was helplessly crying as I loosely held onto her hand. She did not hold mine. She hit it. I stopped crying there and then. I believe that was the first instance I felt both betrayed and deserted.

That slap across my knuckles wasn’t just a flick of impatience as you may define it or as I did at some point in my life; it was a severance, a sharp line drawn between the world we had shared as a duo and the one she was rushing toward without me. In that moment, the chaos of adults swarming our home turned into a personal eclipse, where her distress swallowed mine whole, leaving me to drift away in silence. I felt small, not in the way a child should—curious and wide-eyed—but diminished, like a shadow she’d already stepped over, my grip on her hand which was my last thread of security she’d snipped away effortlessly, teaching me too soon that love could recoil like a struck match.

3. The New Dynamics: Demotion, Deletion, and Disdain

I know better now. An expectant woman who has broken her water must be in travail and distress. And in her mind, she was stressed and wildly in need of help. She was actually in the arms of help. And to have a sympathy-needy child wishing to hold onto you—I know it will be a nuisance. But I usually have this burning itch when I used to see my younger brother. Because I always saw the way we would be treated once he came around. He, Caleb, was given all the care, compassion, and concern. I, Daniel, was given all the demotion, deletion, and disdain. We would walk to church a kilometer away, and I would be hit on the hand if I reached out to my mother to be carried—as my younger brother lay on her back. I never understood the new dynamics.

I felt the erasures, each one stamping out my place in the hierarchy she’d rebuilt around his tiny form. The weight of him on her back became a literal barrier, his cries a currency that bought tenderness while mine bought rebuke. I trailed as an afterthought. I felt invisible yet acutely seen in my exclusion, a ghost in my own family, the sting in my palm mirroring this weird ache of being relegated to the edges of her gaze, wondering if my legs had grown too steady too soon for her arms to remember their shape around mine.

4. The Unspoken Silence in the School Corridor

As my teacher, we usually walked in that school as strangers would. She would always be in a hurry to some place when we met eye to eye. I knew she was obviously running from me. At such an age, I could see behind the sham. I was handed a deliberate dodge, her eyes skimming past mine like I was a smudge on the blackboard she’d rather wipe clean. Where she commanded respect from dozens, I became the one pupil she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—face, her footsteps quickening as if proximity to me carried a contagion of unmet needs. I felt exposed and foolish, a boy piecing together rejection from the tilt of her head, the sham of her professionalism a veil that hid how thoroughly she’d outsourced our bond to lesson plans and chalk dust, leaving me to navigate the hallways alone with the hollow certainty that even in her world of words, I was the unspoken silence.

We only saw eye to eye at home and when leaving school. And even then, she was attending to my younger brother as I was left in the care of either her sister or her cousin. Those handoffs to aunts and cousins were abdications, her attention funneling toward Caleb like a river carving new paths, leaving me parched on the banks. Home, meant to be refuge, turned into a waiting room where I lingered in doorways, watching her coo and cradle while I was shuttled aside, the air thick with the favoritism that made every meal feel like scraps from his table. I felt surplus, a relic of the “just us” era she’d archived without notice, the casualness of my displacement bred a quiet fury that communicated to me I was too much—or not enough—to warrant the fullness of her presence. Where I had a familiar coastal shore, these very familial walls, turned into mirrors of my own irrelevance.

5. The Cold War and the Forbidden Freedom

My repulsion toward my brother stemmed from these acts of treason. I know life was hectic for her. Growing up in the town we were in, I resorted to making friends. This was the time when the 2007 Kenyan elections were in their prime. I tried to play with others and live as a neighborhood child. But my mother usually let out a cold and heartless warning against playing with other children. Matter of fact, I was told that I should never be seen playing outside. I may not know the reason why, but I usually remained locked in the house and would never look outside through the curtains. That was never allowed for me.

Those were incarcerations. You cannot tell me otherwise today. Her voice was this key that turned the lock of my world, confining me to four walls while the laughter of other kids mocked me. She clipped my wings with edicts that made curiosity a crime, the curtains a shroud over the life I craved. I felt caged and conspiratorial against my own instincts, the itch of isolation scratching deeper each day. And obviously, this fostered a resentment that painted her caution as cruelty, as if my budding self were a threat she needed to quarantine from the raw, unscripted joy of childhood’s wild edges.

6. The Councillor’s Window: The Cost of My Actions

Chances are high that I was never allowed to play because one of our neighbors was a councillor in Langas. I attended his son’s birthday when I was 5. The son was turning 3 or 2, I guess. Very few of us in that neighborhood ever celebrated birthdays. It was a posh thing, let’s say. He celebrated. And I remember that the councillor invited every child in the rental units in that compound. He personally informed my mother, so she could not refuse since I was also told that I should go. But I was under strict instructions to stay there for not more than 30 minutes. I stayed for 25.

I visited that compound in 2022 after not being there since March 2010. I got there and saw that the councillor had built apartments, and his assets were scattered all over the neighborhood. He had looted the municipality dry and was truly rich. His son—whose birthday I celebrated—met up with us since one of the guys I met up with, Mokaya, scheduled our meetup. Mokaya was a little older than me. We joined school together when we were little. I remember crying bitterly. He took care of me. He seemed to understand what he was doing. When meeting the councillor’s son, this boy pulled up in a Range Rover that was passed down to him when he turned 20, apparently. There’s levels to this game. It’s clear that there’s no fair ground to this game. It was rigged way before I could even toss the coin.

Nonetheless, the reason I am convinced I was never allowed to ever play outside was because I took one of the spare tires from the councillor’s one-of-one Prado vehicles that were in Langas, Eldoret, and rode it on the veranda—and, to no surprise, hit his window, smashing all the panes to his living room. My mother never scolded me for it. But the cold war officially began. She has never disclosed how they settled that. For all I knew, she could never fund that as a jobless person. I don’t know how it went down, really.

I felt complicit in a crime I barely grasped. Could it be that I was in a home where even apologies felt like talking to a wall? I don’t even know.

7. The Pain That Had to Be Swallowed

But yeah, all I could do was stay at home and play in the house. Sometimes I was locked alone in the house and would chill there. At some point, when I was locked in the house, I remember taking a knife from the kitchen and chipping the edges of the table because I honestly thought the edge was dirty and sharp. When she came back in the evening, my defense was clear-cut: that the table was dirty and sharp. She laughed it off. I remember these as some of the best times. Another time, before outdoors became a no-go zone for me, I wrote the numbers and the alphabet on a white wall with charcoal. I do not know what the punishment for this was, but it was not tragic. When I graduated from campus, my father told me that they had to pay for painting because of that. I do not know whether these things show me to have been a hard child growing up.

I also remember getting thorns in my heel or the sides of my foot, and they left me with awful scars. Thorns these days don’t hurt like they used to. Those thorns used to prick to the bone. They were ruthless—the kei apple thorns. When I would come back home, my mother would then go and purchase ‘elastoplast’ for me to cover the wound. I don’t know whether it was an inconvenience for her, though.

The first time I had to swallow my pain was when I started to understand how the game is supposed to play out. I used to love climbing trees without the fear of falling from them. Matter of fact, I was open to the idea of falling from them—because I had fallen rather too often. Prior to this time, I used to fall on my stomach, and the sharp, breathless pain—where you try to gasp for air—would be felt. This time, I fell feet-first, and I believe my hip bone broke or something; I just cannot tell. And it was fragile because a bike had fallen on me not long ago. I am sure I needed medical attention at that time. But I also never wanted to be scolded. I tried to walk firmly, but that pain was excruciating. I felt it. For years after that, I never felt a pain that equaled it. I sucked it in, faking that I was okay. She obviously suspected something was off because I was walking like a three-legged creature who lacked one of the three legs and had to walk on twos. Shame on the bipeds!

Let’s just say it wasn’t indifference born of busyness; it was a mirror to the self-silencing she’d modeled. In this harshness just maybe I was forcing ‘little-me’ to bury my fracture under my limps while the pain radiated like these unspoken accusations. In the hush of her observation, I became architect of my own endurance, each hobbling step a vow against vulnerability, her silence complicit in the lesson that pain was mine to hoard lest it invite the lash of her impatience. I felt armored yet brittle. In our home, fractures—bodily or otherwise—were mended in isolation, the cost of confession too high for a boy already limping under the weight of her withheld hands.

8. The Final Betrayal: A Pinch in the Face of Fangs

Some other time, I was sent to purchase milk. We were with my cousin, Patience. Patience was older and taller. She was a girl who, I think, was almost—or even already—hitting puberty. The rain was falling. We had umbrellas and boots. I was in a navy blue jacket and brown pants, as she was in full pink, I think. The shop was owned by someone who had a compound and had the shop’s window outside the compound. I used to see the older guys would enter into the compound just in case the owner was not there. And they would call for the shopkeeper, and they would show up and sell to them.

Now, Patience was new around here. Guess who wished to impress her? Moi, J’emappelle Danielle. I opened the gate and tried to assert my “big person” aura on my cousin. We both got in. And then I saw three German Shepherds race each other, clamoring toward us. Soon I saw too many join them, and it was an innumerable company of brown fur. Patience, who was right behind me, ran out, closing the gate by pulling. I was confused. I ran toward that gate to open it by pushing. It never opened, of course. The dogs ravaged my brown pants in seconds, and in no time, I suffered a dog bite. The owner came out and scared away the dogs.

When my mother came after some 10 minutes, she came and pinched me on the cheeks first thing. I cried bitterly. Later, we went to the hospital and got syringe jabs from July until the year ended—against rabies.

Who needs any balm of comfort? Isn’t that a misguided affection? Let’s extend grace that it was a rebuke disguised as tenderness, her fingers digging into my skin as if to squeeze out the audacity of my fear, prioritizing correction over consolation in the wake of fangs and frenzy. Let’s be turning rescue into reprimand and my vulnerability into a fault line she’d press upon first. I felt doubly savaged. Let’s be graceful and say disciplinarians are always like that.

MOTHER IN NYAMIRA (2010-2019)

We were now a little older, no longer the small, helpless children who had been dragged from one hardship to another. My mother, after years of waiting and quiet prayers, was finally posted by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to Bonyaiguba Primary School, deep in the heart of Bonyaiguba, Nyamira District, Nyanza Province. When the transfer letter arrived, she held it in trembling hands, reading it over and over as though she couldn’t believe the words were real. Tears welled up in her eyes—tears of joy, relief, and maybe a little fear. For the first time in years, the misery that had clung to us like a second skin began to peel away. We could finally see light at the end of the long, dark tunnel we had been crawling through. But life has a way of playing jokes. You wouldn’t guess what was actually waiting at the end of that tunnel—not gold, not rest, just more struggle dressed in different clothes. We already knew from bitter experience that teachers in Kenya were paid peanuts, especially in those rural postings. With the cost of living rising every day, a teacher’s salary barely kept body and soul together. Still, it was home. It was Nyamira. It was where we belonged.

My mother had been through hell with the unions. She had stood in solidarity during KUPPET strikes, shouting herself hoarse for better pay that never came. She had weathered the Nairobi colleagues tear-gassed, arrested, threatened. Then came the split—some teachers moved to KNUT, others stayed loyal to KUPPET. She had navigated the politics, the gossip, the betrayal, the endless meetings under mango trees where passionate speeches dissolved into nothing. She had weathered it all with a quiet strength I only understood much later.

March 10th, 2010. I still remember the date like it’s carved into my skin. That was the day we left Eldoret for good and headed to Nyamira—my golden home, the place my heart had secretly longed for even when I didn’t fully understand why. We woke up before dawn. The air was cool, the kind of crisp morning cold that bites your cheeks. The sun rose slowly that day, painting the sky in soft gold and pink, and somehow it felt different—like it was saying goodbye to one chapter and hello to another. My mother, ever practical, went to the bus stage early to buy chapati from a mama who sold them wrapped in old newspaper for 15 shillings each. The smell of fresh chapati and chai filled the air. They greeted each other warmly in Ekegusii, laughing and talking fast.

“Naarari ogochi ekemambi eke” the vendor asked.

My mother smiled wide. “Ee, nche nachiire nka, Nyamira. N’abana mbwate iga.”

We’re going home at last, taking the children back to their roots.

By then, I had already started understanding the language properly. You don’t learn your mother tongue from textbooks—you learn it from the sharp side of scoldings, from overhearing grown-ups arguing over money, from the untethered rants of drunk ‘uncles’ on market day, from the sweet nothings grandmothers whisper when they think you’re asleep. Every “Omoisi oyo!” and “Tiga obokori!” had taught me more than any classroom ever could.

When we finally arrived in Nyamira, tired and dusty from the long journey, something inside me began to heal. My cousins were there waiting—Joshua, my exact agemate, the one person who truly understood what it felt like to be born in the same year, same struggles, same madness; and Eugene(while he was a direct cousin; we were from the same clan), one year older, already acting like the big boss. Living with them changed everything. For years it had been just me, my little brother, and my mother in a small rented room, carrying the weight of loneliness like a sack of stones. Now the load was shared. We fought like cats and dogs one minute—over a piece of ugali, over who got the bigger half of a mango, over whose turn it was to fetch water—and the next minute we were laughing until our stomachs hurt, rolling down grassy hills or climbing loquat trees until the branches shook. We played football with balls made of plastic bags and rubber bands. We experienced life together in all its raw, messy, beautiful depth. Childhood, for the first time, felt like rainbows and sunshine instead of endless grey storms I had to face alone.

And then there was my grandmother—ng’ina monto, the pillar of the home. She was ruthless when she needed to be, quick with a slap or a sharp word if you stepped out of line, but her love ran deeper than Lake Victoria. She wasn’t the soft, cuddly, cookie-baking kind of grandmother you see in storybooks. No. She was real. She had buried siblings, survived long treks to harvest and plant, walked miles barefoot to sell vegetables, prayed through nights when sickness came knocking. She woke up at 5 a.m. to milk cows, tend the shamba, cook for an entire household, and still had time to tell us stories by the fire—tales of clever hares and greedy hyenas that always carried a lesson. She was godly in the truest sense: her faith wasn’t loud or showy, but it held her together when everything else fell apart. To this day, she is my heroine, my standard for what strength really looks like.

Joshua and I bathed together almost every evening. Water was precious—boiled in big sufurias over a three-stone fire in the smoky kitchen—so sharing was mandatory. We shared the tiny basin we called “ekarai,” the single bar of cheap blue soap that never lathered properly, everything. The bathroom was nothing more than a small walled room with a concrete floor and a hole in the corner that drained into the pit latrine next door. The only difference between washing yourself and using the toilet was the size of the hole and how carefully you aimed. Apparently, dirty water finds its way down more reliably than little boys do when nature calls.

One evening stands out clearly in my memory. The fire crackled low, the kitchen filled with smoke that made our eyes water. My mother had boiled just enough warm water for the two of us. Joshua, being bolder and faster, jumped in first and used nearly all of it—scrubbing his arms, legs, back, everything. By the time it was my turn, only a tiny amount of warm water remained, barely enough to wet my feet. I trudged back to the kitchen, dragging my feet dramatically.

“Mama, maji ikoo?” I asked, expecting the usual cold water from the jerrycan. We always fought over warm water like it was gold, each praying the other wouldn’t finish it.

To my shock, she poured me a decent amount of warm water into the basin. I couldn’t believe my luck. I hurried back to the bathroom, splashed the warm water only on my feet (why waste it on the rest of me when I could save the warmth for later?), then marched proudly back to the house, chest out like I’d won a prize.

“Umeoga mwili mzima?” she asked casually, not even looking up from folding clothes.

“Eeeeh!” I answered confidently.

She reached over, pulled me close by the front of my old sweater, and placed her hand flat on my stomach. Warm skin. Completely dry. The realization hit her like lightning.

The next thing I knew, I was airborne—half-carried, half-dragged outside. I tumbled down the concrete steps as the first lash of the stick landed across my back. “Hiyo maji moto yote umeosha miguu tu?!” she roared. The stick sang through the air again and again, finding its mark with terrifying accuracy. I howled. Neighbors probably heard. She didn’t care. Between lashes she hissed, “Lala chini! Tulia!” as if crying louder would make the punishment worse. I got it raw that day—no mercy, no negotiation.

In my head, even as the tears flowed, I was arguing my case like a lawyer. Doesn’t the sunk cost fallacy apply here, woman? You already boiled the water! It’s gone whether I use it on my whole body or just my feet! And where is the burden of proof? One incident and you pronounce judgment? Even philosophers say that just because the sun has risen every day for millions of years doesn’t logically prove it will rise tomorrow—yet you convicted me on one data point! And Joshua did the exact same thing last month and got away with nothing more than a warning! Why am I suddenly the villain, the black sheep, the family disgrace? Calm down, dear mother. You were out of pocket. Way out of pocket.

Years later, when I was in Class 6, the pain of boarding school finally broke me. I had been one of the youngest boarders at Dorcas Academy—sent there far too early, in my opinion. The school belonged to the late John Nyagarama, then Director of the Kenya Tea Development Agency and later Governor of Nyamira. To us kids he seemed like a big man who cared—he visited sometimes, asked about our grades, even gave out sweets during prize-giving day. Whether he looted the county coffers later, I don’t know. That’s a story for another day. Back then he was just “Grandpa” to us.

Third term. I was dressed in full uniform—grey shorts, light green shirt, green tie, sweater, shoes polished the night before. My bag was packed. Everything was ready. But something in me snapped. I stood at the door and said it out loud: “Mum, siendi Dorcas.” Just like that. No drama, no shouting. Quiet defiance.

She froze. In her eyes I could see memories flashing—her own childhood, walking miles to school, dreaming of the day she’d wear a boarding school uniform like it was a crown. To her generation, boarding school wasn’t punishment; it was privilege, the golden ticket to a better life. She truly believed she was setting me up for success.

She didn’t ask why. She didn’t sit me down to understand the weight I was carrying—the homesickness, the bullying, the endless rules, the cold nights when I cried into my mattress or desk missing home. She didn’t see the trauma building like a storm inside me. Instead, she lifted the hem of her dress in that dramatic way only African mothers can, and with a voice shaking from anger and disappointment shouted, “Unataka nifanye nini?!”

Let me translate that for anyone who’s never heard it: when a Kenyan parent asks “Unataka nifanye nini?” you have exactly 0.5 seconds to reverse whatever foolish decision you just made, because their ears are now officially closed, their heart has turned to stone, and their hand is already reaching for the nearest instrument of correction.

I said nothing. I picked up my bag, walked to the car, and boarded the matatu to school in silence. For the next two and a third years I lived in that beautiful prison—green lawns, strict teachers, morning preps, cold showers, tasteless food, and a spirit slowly being crushed under the weight of “tough love.” I felt abandoned, misunderstood, forced to accept a path I never chose.

I know now that she thought she was doing the right thing. In her mind I was strong, resilient, the kind of child who never quits. She believed pushing me forward—no matter how much it hurt—would make me unbreakable. But there are moments in a child’s life when what they need is not another push, but a hand pulling them close, a soft voice saying, “Tell me what’s wrong.” Kindness and understanding at that moment would have given me wings. Instead, I learned to swallow pain, to accept the status quo, to survive rather than soar.

That’s the thing about growing up—no one gets it completely right. Not our parents. Not us. We just do the best we can with the love we have, and sometimes that love comes wrapped in fire instead of warmth.

MOTHER ALONE IN NYAMIRA (2020 - 2025)

The Great Uncoupling and the Theology of Distance

If Eldoret was the era of the Tyrant, and the early years in Nyamira were the era of the Disciplinarian, the years following 2020 marked the era of the Distant Observer. I couldn’t have desired another mother for the years since I joined university. There is a specific kind of peace that comes when the umbilical cord is finally, truly cut—not by birth, but by the sheer force of adulthood and geographical separation.

The dynamics shifted tectonically. The woman who once monitored my every breath, who demanded to know why I wasn’t playing outside and then punished me for the consequences of doing so, retreated into the background. I grew to love that our phone calls were reduced to short, transactional exchanges.

“Uko aje?” (How are you?)

“Niko poa.” (I am fine.)

“Kula vizuri.” (Eat well.)

That was it. There were no deep interrogations into the state of my soul or the contents of my heart. I came to appreciate this distance, this love that was covered in the magnificent art of minding your own business. It was a utilitarian relationship, and for a young man forging his own identity in the chaos of the 2020s, it was the perfect breathing room.

The Unspoken Treaty

We developed an unspoken treaty: I would not burden her with my reality, and she would not burden me with her expectations. I did not share the heartbreak of how a girl broke me, leaving me questioning my worth in the dead of night. I did not share the struggles of navigating a world that demanded experience I didn’t have. I spared her the details of my “rash feelings” of being tied down, the claustrophobia of young adulthood where every decision feels like a potential catastrophe.

In return, she spared me the intrusion. But this peace came at a cost. It came with the realization that there were no deep filial ties binding us in the way poets describe. We were biological relations managing a diplomatic truce. I had already disappointed her, you see. The moment I found my voice, I used it to articulate values and religious beliefs that stood in stark contrast to the traditional religiosity she held dear.

The Heretic Son

To her, my new resolve was a betrayal. I had taken the “cultic belief” she perhaps feared and made God’s own mission my own, but not in the way she recognized. I wasn’t the son staying in the safe lane of conventional worship; I was radicalized by my own convictions. I saw the disappointment in her eyes—or rather, heard it in the silence between our words—when she realized I was no longer seeking her approval.

I had become my own man, and in doing so, I had become a stranger to her. And strangely, that was okay.

The pain of the “Severance” in Eldoret and the sting of the “Unspoken Silence” in the school corridor had calloused over. The 20% in math that flipped to 80% was no longer for her; the working my “fucking ass off” was no longer to prove I existed. It was for me. I had finally learned the lesson she taught me unconsciously all those years ago when she slapped my hand away at the gate: Stand alone.

So, we exist in this quiet detente. She in Nyamira, surrounded by the tea bushes and the memories of a struggle survived; I in my own world, chasing a mission she doesn’t fully grasp. We are safe in our separate silos. I have forgiven the tyrant, I have understood the disciplinarian, and I have made peace with the stranger.

MOTHER RECLAIMED (2026 and Beyond)

The Return, The Reflection, and The Rest

As the years turn and the calendar flips past 2025, the silence of the silos—that diplomatic distance we carefully constructed—is no longer enough for me. The “Unspoken Treaty” served its purpose; it allowed the wounds to scab over, the boy to become a man, and the heat of our past conflicts to cool. But now, I feel a different pull. It is the pull of the prodigal heart returning not out of defeat, but out of a fullness of understanding. I wish to bridge the gap. I wish to cross the rift valley of our differences and simply hold her hand—this time, without the fear that she will let go.

The Mirror in My Soul

I have looked into the mirror of my own adulthood and, to my startlement, I have found her staring back at me. The stubbornness that I once called tyranny? I see it in my own refusal to settle for mediocrity. The severity I once called cruelty? I see it in the high standards I hold myself to. The fiery independence that made her difficult? It is the very engine that powers my ambition today. I am not merely her son by blood; I am her son by spirit.

I have forgiven her. Not with a grand announcement or a formal decree, but with the quiet, washing tide of maturity. I realize now that she was a woman fighting a war with no armor, raising men in a world that breaks them, trying to perfect us with the only tool she had: fire. If she burned me, it was only because she was burning too. I love her for it. I love her for the jagged edges because they carved me into something solid.

The Defender at the Gate

And there is this truth that settles in my bones as I look toward the future: No one—absolutely no one—would rise to my defense faster than her. The world is full of fair-weather friends and conditional allies, but if the sky were to fall on me today, she would be the one holding up the heavens. The same ferocity she used to discipline me is the ferocity she would use to dismantle anyone who dared to harm me. She is my iron wall. She is the lioness who may bite her cub to teach him, but will tear out the throat of the hyena that hunts him.

A Vow of Care

So, in these coming years, my mission changes. I no longer want to just send money via M-Pesa and brief texts. I want to be present. I want to take care of her, not as a duty, but as a love offering. I want to give her the softness she never allowed herself to have. I want to buy her the bread and butter she denied herself so we could eat. I want to see her rest.

I want to sit with her in Nyamira, under the shade of the trees she planted, and listen to her stories without judgment. I want to tell her, “Mama, nimekusamehe. Na nakupenda.” (Mom, I have forgiven you. And I love you.) I want to hold her aging hands—the hands that once slapped, the hands that once worked the soil—and kiss them with the reverence due to a saint.

We are no longer the Tyrant and the Victim. We are no longer the Teacher and the Problem Student. We are simply Mother and Son, two warriors who survived the same war, finally laying down our shields to rest in each other’s grace.

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