AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD .... EPISODE 4

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD…

By Njonjo Mue

PART FOUR

WHEN LOVE PIERCED THROUGH THE SILENCE.

I had a deep and dreamless sleep. When I awoke, my father and brother-in-law were gone and I was surrounded by other patients in their beds. It must have been visiting hours because there were many people around each bed talking to their loved ones. Though my father was absent, his last words kept ringing in my ears, “I love you, Njonjo.”

I knew my father loved me. I could remember, from when I first became aware of myself and my surroundings as a child, him playing with me, washing me, taking us out to the toilet at night in turns whenever each of us called as we did not have indoor toilets in Thika.

When I grew older, he would come from work in the evenings and he and I would go out bird-hunting. He was so accurate with his slingshot that several nights, my basic menu of ugali and cabbage found itself suddenly enhanced with some much welcome protein when we brought home a pigeon or two.

He would also discipline me with a stick that he kept for that purpose in one corner of the bedroom. Most of the time, however, we were such good friends that when the stick needed to be replaced, during peace time, he and I would go to the nearby bushes to identify the most suitable stick that would be warming my behind when I next broke the law.

And he was ever the encourager, never missing a moment to let his children know how proud he was of them. He prayed for us often and I remember listening in on his prayers for all members of his family by name as I drifted in and out of sleep early in the morning or late at night, depending on whether he was working the day or night shift.

And he showed us what it was to love by how he loved my mother. They always seemed to have so much to talk about. Other parents were rarely seen together, or if they were, the man would walk so far ahead of his wife that if you did not know them you would not think that they were together at all. But my father always walked side by side with my mother – to church, to the market, to work when they happened to be on the same shift.

But he had never told me before this day that he loved me. Indeed, over time, the one phrase that I came to hear most often from him was “Congratulations, you have done well, as usual,” as he looked at my report card at the end of each term and found what he expected, that I had topped my class once again.

My father was very proud of my performance and, over time, I started to live for the end of term when I would hear these words of approval. I topped my class throughout primary school and secured a place at Alliance High School after scoring the highest marks in my Certificate of Primary Education. I went on to perform well in High School and proceeded to study law at university. Shortly after graduating, I won the Rhodes Scholarship and proceeded to Oxford.

Little did I know that through this extraordinary performance, over time, slowly but surely, I came to think that people loved and valued me for my brilliance and like many who get trapped in the prison of their own perceived greatness, I became a human doing instead of a human being.

It is no wonder that as my life began to unravel during those early days in Oxford, my greatest fear was that if I failed, there would be nothing left for anyone to love. With the benefit of hindsight, I now recognise that this painful journey through depression was also God’s way of stripping me of all that I thought made me acceptable even to him so that I could understand that He loved me, in the words of the old hymn of invitation, ‘Just as I am.’

I spent the first ten days of October recovering at Avenue hospital. Very early during my stay, it started becoming clear to me that I had indeed been very was sick but was beginning to recover. The first sign of this recovery was that when I woke up from my deep sleep on the day I was admitted, I felt hungry for the first time in longer than I could remember and actually enjoyed my lunch. I also enjoyed the visits from my sisters and my nieces, Sippy, Becky and Shiro. I particularly remember enjoying the fruits and the warm milk that they brought for me every day I was in hospital. My life also began to regain some structure since, for the first time, I was able to remain awake during the day and actually fall asleep at night.

I was also surprised to receive visits from former law school classmates Isaac Lenaola and Benjamin Ludeki, as well as Nancy Kang’ethe who came to see me over the weekend accompanied by her niece. I did not exactly know how they found out that I was back from Oxford and in hospital.

Although to them this may have been just another routine hospital visit, I do not think that they shall ever appreciate what it meant to me. I felt I was clearly no longer in their league. I had lost everything while their own careers were beginning to flourish. In my mind, I was not worthy of their taking their precious time to visit. And yet, here they were sitting silently by my bedside as I had not yet really regained my confidence nor my voice to engage them in conversation. But their silent presence during this season of gloom will forever be to me a fragrant offering of love that will remain etched in my memory to the day I take my final breath.

God also sent his angels to cheer me on, even here in hospital. While some like my three law school friends had somehow learned of my predicament and made plans to see me, two other friends were directed by sheer force of circumstance to come and encourage me. One was Njeri Wamae who came with a group of friends to visit their dad who was in the bed next to mine.

During the second day of my stay in hospital, my friend Palmer Thambu was visiting a work colleague also suffering from depression and admitted in the same hospital. When he bumped into me, he must have been shocked at how emaciated and distant I looked. His concern almost turned to anger at seeing me looking like such a pale shadow of myself.

“You will get through this, Njonjo!” his voice boomed with emotion as he restrained his tears. It was a firm promise, and it did not appear to be addressed to me. It seemed instead to be a command that he was daring to make to God to complete whatever work he was doing in me in this season as soon as possible so that I could be restored to health. Again, this brief interaction with an old friend who seemed so much more passionate for my healing that I could summon up the will to be for myself became another pillar to lean on during my journey of recovery.

I stayed in hospital for ten days and was discharged on Moi Day. I went back home to my sister’s house in Umoja feeling much better than when I had been taken to hospital ten days before. Although I did not fully understand this condition at the time, a number of changes in me made me realise that I had indeed been sick and was well on my way to recovery.

I was able to eat and enjoy food, I was able to sleep and get rest at night, I was able to be fully awake and alert during the day, I was able to start connecting and have conversations with people. Although I worried about the future, especially the immediate future with regard to the possibility of going back to Oxford or getting a job, these were reasonable concerns and were not accompanied by thoughts of self-condemnation or the urge to end my life.

The depression was coming to an end, or so I thought. What I did not know at the time was that although I had climbed out of the valley, I would enjoy the fresh air of the plain only for a short while before involuntarily scaling the heights of mania where breathing the light air of extreme happiness would prove to be just as dangerous to my well-being as the gloomy despair that I had survived at the bottom of the valley.