To pour into others is a gift very few people get to enjoy. I recently had a conversation with a friend who runs an organisation that is helping teenage mothers walk this journey of life, I suggested that we(angel parents) would be able to be a blessing to her mothers and bless them with our babies clothes. There was a whole back and forth whether the teen mothers would accept the clothes knowing that they were for angel babies and whether the angel moms would be willing to let go of their angels clothes. I shared my story with her;
I was added to this baby shower group and I froze. I didn’t even know what to type.. congratulations? Leave the group? But these are gals who had been there for me during my university days in Nairobi ( nothing like being alone in a foreign country and knowing no one and not knowing that language🤦) This was a trigger for me, baby showers and baby shops, since Keitangaza’ death I avoided them at all costs. I normally existed these groups and the admins always understood no one pushed me kwonka for this particular shower I was excited for my friend, so I side barred the admin who was a million miles away organizing gals in Kampala to throw a suprise for her bff 😂 I told her, “I might not attend but I’ll get a gift.” She understood. That week was a struggling week! I remember chatting with my matron, I kept telling her wapi!this plan isn’t happening; she understood. I liked that people were not pushing me. The only person pushing me was God!
First of all, I had kept Keitangaza’s suitcase up high where my short self couldn’t reach them. Now 1 year and 7months later they are in my face…open me! Look at me! I asked my brother who is like 10feet tall to pull it down for me, I kept it at my bed side for two nights on the third day, I opened it. Yoooo! I wasn’t ready for the emotions. Her little dresses I had planned to dress her in when going out, her bedsheets, her overalls mannnn, I wasn’t ready but somehow as I went through them I had a voice “Gift them to….” I was like whaaat? What do u mean? I ignored.
Keilah enters my room and asks what her sister’s case is doing down so I tell her about the baby shower and how I have been told to gift her clothes. Keilah looks at me and says, “who better to give her clothes than your friend.” This child🤦 Anyway Saturday morning I wake up(day of the shower), Keilah wakes me up holding Keitangaza’s baby bag “mummy time to pack pieces of Keitangaza.” I was like whaaat?? She said, “you always say it’s better to give than receive.”(how your words come to slap you in the face) We pack the clothes, it was bitter sweet feeling, I was bleeding through the blessing. At the shower as people were their gifts and explaining, I choked I just couldn’t get my words out bulungi.(I know, I spit out 100 words per minute) it was hard, these were the last pieces of my girl but something just told me it’s time. Once I handed that bag over, there was a sense of calm. A peace I couldn’t explain. The drive home with my matron as we went through the day, I told her “baby showers are nolonger a trigger.” Was it easy? Hell no! Was it worth it? Totally!! The traumas we go through tend to leave residues of what could have been,what ifs and whys? These the world calls triggers, I call them bondage points. I am yet to enter a baby shop, but atleast I can attend baby showers.
