Lately I have been very happy. Happy with myself. The kinda happiness that comes from within me and not anyone else. The reason why I’m happy is because I have adapted the character of acceptance. I have accepted what happened to me, I am accepting what will happen to me and I’m doing the acceptance for positivism only. There are times I feel as if I was a bad person before then just by what people told me and sometimes I feel open to never blame anyone for it. I never question anyone in fact I have grown so fond of sharing it out here because I believe am a better person now(If at all I was bad).

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Late February after the week of Valentine’s I was in my favourite happy place doing what I love most. Music; I was playing the piano, there’s a song that was so deep in my heart and so I decided to practice the chords. Took me few minutes to master the notes. And finally I was ready to sing it. All of a sudden I blacked out. The blacking out comes in so quickly because that’s the only part of the story I remember because whatever happened before I had begun practicing, I don’t remember.

Few hours later I woke up at mama Lucy hospital in Nairobi, Embakasi . The only person who was standing right before my eyes was a nurse. I guess she was middle aged, a bit tall and beautiful too. I never fear complimenting people, it’s my thing. I stared at her for a while, closed my eyes to accommodate the lights then opened them again and she began speaking to me.I could see that she was talking to me but I could only get to hear her in bits.

“You don’t have to do this John, look around this place, do you want to be here, really?” she continued,
“You need to wear your shoes and go home, go home and continue living.”

When she said “continue living” I gave her one blank stare and everything else she said didn’t get into my ears.

How do you continue living after realising that you don’t even remember your own-self? You can’t remember your 23 years memory? You don’t even remember how old you are? You don’t remember if at all you had any childhood memories? How do you go back to living when you can’t remember if at all you had a love life? -if you ever fell in love. How do you go back to living when you don’t know whether to give up or give in to your fears? How?? Her statement was just untimely and no wonder my ears shut.

A week earlier before all this happened, I had been to Multimedia University. The school where I took my Journalism studies and had graduated months earlier with good grades too. Good grades are hard to get in university!. But here I was all blank. And now I didn’t have any idea of what my profession was.

I always ask myself, why did this have to happen to me? why did it have to happen to me especially after I had graduated. Did it have to come with lose of speech too? Was it someone’s fault? But as I began earlier on to mention, “I have accepted what happened to me and I blame no one.” Am different now, never I was.

The nurse kept on talking but my ears could only grab a few words in what she said. I saw the face of my mother, my lovely mum. Her beauty was covered in sadness. She was worried and I don’t think I would ever want to see her worried that much again about me. My heart felt broken to my bones. It made me question God, why? why would you let a mother see her first born vanishing? Why would you let a father worry about his first seed? My father was speechless, that’s the first time I saw him weak. Sons are meant to see their fathers strong always but in this, the father was no where close to strong. This is not how things work. Why would God let brothers suffer not to have someone to look up-to? All these questions were in-vain.

I stepped down the hospital bed and as I walked outside the hospital, the last thing I grabbed into my ears from the night shift nurse was,

“He needs a counselor.” and I asked myself do counselors sell memories? Maybe they do, who knows!

I didn’t want to stay in the hospital so I walked straight to the car. My parents asked me to go back and have the drip needle removed from my hand but I did not want to go back there. All I wanted was an escape, an escape from all this heartbreak, heartache. An escape from a dark hole.

On my way back home I felt horrible. I felt heartbroken. It was the kind of a heartbreak that goes beyond the heartbreak of falling in love. You can’t explain whether you feel pain or bitterness. You can’t tell whether the day is better than the night.

How do you live without memories? How do you start a fresh at the age of 23 to know people again? How do you live a life of explaining to every one of your old friends that you don’t remember them anymore? How do you look for a job without a memory? How do you survive the interview? All these questions kept running in my head. It’s a feeling I never want anyone to go through. It’s a feeling I never wish for anyone to go through. But I went through it.

When I got home I felt confused. I wanted to go to my house but I couldn’t tell if I had a house or not? No one pretends to lose their memory but sometimes I keep on asking myself people who thought that I pretended why would I waste my time to pretend to lose my memory? Well I’m no longer thinking about questioning anymore. I began…….

To be continued……