I AM DEATH’S VOMIT!
Every person has a story to tell
Of their coming and ultimate survival
Close shaves with the grim reaper
Yet narrowly escaping…
There’s an incredible sizzling recount
Lo! behold the gracious smile of gratitude
Is there one that shades another’s story!
All are but glittering glimpses in the darkness of death’s mouth
A beautiful vomit for the fresh start
A slap to the choruses of jeering witnesses
That faith and hope can dissolve a mountain!
That I died in my infancy-it’s a notorious recount!
The fact of my dying a bit and imminent resurrection
It’s a reverberated echo of my mother’s trial
And the people laughed at my mother
And they were poking her in and with ridicule saying:
“ See this foolish woman carrying a dead baby!
Why doesn’t she put it down and weep!”
And thus my mother hopelessly continued on her way
Searching for my life at Makanga, Kabale hospital
Her maternal uncle, a grass cutter at the same hospital,
Saw her from far
Yonasani Kajura run to her and picked me from her back
Like the other laughing villagers, he said that:
“It appears I (myself) have no breath,
Bezibwaki!
The eyes are white like paper!
But since you are here let’s try the emergency ward.”
And they carried me to the ward with the littlest and faintest of hopes!
The measles had thoroughly overpowered me
The fever was overwhelming and I was heated hot like steaming water!
My body was untouchable and repellent as the boiling pressure cooker!
In the white doctor’s eyes I was totally an effigy of sorrow
Yes I was a salad and a veal in death’s mouth
It’s was fondling me with licking for the ultimate swallow
Soft and tender I appealed to death’s appetite…
And yet the white doctor pressed my chest
Simultaneously he pumped oxygen into my lungs
A few wispy bubbles of air escaped out of my mouth and nose
And he pumped ever so faster and more …
After what looked like a long haul
Rises and falls in my chest were detected
And the white man hugged my poor mother saying,
“Thank you for trying!
The baby was as good as dead on arrival!
Thank you for trying!”
For more than a week she kept an eye on me
Miraculously I cut the corner and recovered
I did not get the squints and of course I survived death!
In our village,
More than ten babies my age perished from measles
Long after when I was a fully grown up
Most women would tell me to be thankful to my mother who had ran to hospital
Many mothers had thought of the onslaught as witchcraft
Mine, a member of the Mothers Union under the able aegis of:
Mrs Ezekiel Balaba and Merable Kivengere had learnt of the merits of the hospital
Illiterate as she was she had picked up her cue
And now I’m alive as a testament to her efforts!
God bless you mom and let your soul peacefully rest forever!
As to the date of my birth,
After her interment I found my baptism and confirmation certificates in her older Lunyoro-Rutoro Bible:
It was reading the tenth of June nineteen sixty five!
For nineteen years I had already earned my law degrees
I had traveled to four continents
I found no reason to disturb the certificates passport and visas!
Davis Ndyomugabe of Qacheqis on his narrowest and survival from death- cheating death and recovering from measles; escaping death after a head-on accident with a bus and descending into coma; surviving DVT- Deep Vein Thrombosis; narrowly beating off appendicitis after being falsely diagnosed with typhoid; and other brushes with the grim reaper in various motor accidents… what can I return in gratitude to the Living God of life! Wondrously amazing, just amazing grace- like my mother Grace!
