I know you’re already thinking about Covid variant Omicron, or maybe Christmas and here I am entertaining thoughts of love. Yes that love that ukambani sun scorched out of Lilian and Alfred, I won’t use a title on the latter, love dishonors all titles.
I digest matters slowly so it’s today that I thought of sharing my thoughts.
I have been thinking about these statements;
“Return every coin I ever spent on you”
“Return all the investment under your name but financed by me”
“I invested in your education greatly, were it not for me you wouldn’t be where you”
“You’re who you are because of me”
“Nilikuosha, nimekutoa mbali…”
“I picked you from the gutter…” but what were you doing in the gutter?”
And all the bitter paragraphs you can add to these.
But what happened to love? Who would even equate it to a car, a house, a certificate and even cows according to my culture!
We should do things to those we love because we love them, period. Not because we want them to stick to us, worship us, or even die for us. Such kind of entitlement is selfish and corrupt. At the place of exchange of the goodies that now make us bitter, we were basking in the warmth of affection and endearments indescribable.
So what now? We wake up, they’ve left us or we have left and we put a price on investments!
Love can make us do things we’re unable to write here. We can’t put a price on it unless and only if our motive was all wrong. And wrong motive comes in if we may have used the gifts to buy their love, or cover our tracks or even soothe the pain we’ve caused them or send a message to the public such that we remain unquestionable or sometimes we loved out of dysfunctions- We gave gifts to be noticed or acknowledged and now we’re bitter because they didn’t notice our labor. Yes the unhealthy sick labor.
Then when thinking about my own experience.
I realized that there are investments we can never put a price on.
Back in 2009 I had a friend, her name is Ayomo.
She was sweet in all ways. She loved me ferrociously Ayomo would tell me things like …” Akinyi ni fala gani inavuruga roho yako nimchangamkie saa hii…” I’d respond “aaah Zii” but only in my mind, my sheng or lugha ya mtaa eloquence is zero, So I’d say ….Hakuna. My son is trying so hard to help me learn some words in sheng, my daughter is unbothered. Where is this coming from? Ooh Ayomo…..
Back to love and investments, One day Ayomo gets tipsy and she asks her boyfriend,”Damiano nashinda kukushow nakupenda na huoni, unataka nitoe roho yangu nikarange tukule na wewe ndio ujue nakupenda ama?” we laughed about this as long as we’d remember, till date it tickles me. Yaani if they’d fry that roho who’d have eaten it, and yes who’d cut it!
Her voice is that of dame wa Eastlando, you’ll laugh at her tonal variations first, then the words later.
She actually got bornagain kicked the liquor and she preaches Jesus today. I miss her.
Love is stupid in a sweet way.
Whilst ruminating on the loss of my relationship I remember saying “yaani mimi mama Kael, waking up at 4am to make breakfast lunch and dinner for someone as per their preference, run to work, head to school later and run home huko 10pm. And still my love is questioned… yaani all these sacrifices no one saw!.”And even those things we can’t write here because they’re so intimate and indescribable, aaaah yawa…
Then the Holy spirit spoke so clearly ” So Emily,who did you want to notice your labour, were you to be paid? ” I was rebuked.
And I have been quiet till I was told in the glare of the sky “I wasted my time and resources on you!” I recovered two weeks later, it ripped my heart. Such statements enter differently when they’re directed to you.
What am learning is ; there’s no quotation for love.
Feeling like someone got to pay us back after a loss of a relationship is sheer entitlement, selfishness and corruption in one bag.
There’s no one who can pay a mother for making them be a dad and vice versa. And who can pay one for a pregnancy journey?
And what of those that carry the pregnancy, labor, birth and raise for some years minus the presence of the man, who can pay them when the love fizzles out? who?
The fasting you undertook on their behalf for the years that relationship lasted, who’ll pay?
Being vigil at the wee hours because a matter in their lives has to be aligned, or because they have to receive healing, who’ll pay?
What of the war you waged for years for them to be born-again so that you all walk in one understanding? Who’ll pay?
What of the altars you’ve risen at the wee hours for years to break because of them? who’ll pay?
What of the shame you’ve had to adorn because of them? who’ll pay?
And what about that name you bear because of them, who’ll give a quotation?
What of their pain that you’ve carried as your own for years, who’ll give a quotation?
Who’ll pay for the years you spent at their bedside nursing their wounds till they healed, would anyone price it?
There are many things we can’t even bring ourselves to talk about, and no one will pay us.
There’s no quotation for love.
We’re all worth dying for.
Reason why God gave His only begotten son to die for us. He loved us deeply.
Written: 30/11/2021
-Emily Omondi