I Didn’t Know I Was Counting Down

Home…

You can spend years longing for it, never imagining that it could welcome you back differently.

It had been three years since I left Kenya. Three years of growing up from a distance, watching my family through phone calls and video calls, celebrating milestones from thousands of miles away. And now, I was finally going home.

In January 2024, my dad sat beside me on a plane, bringing me to Hungary. He was the person who helped me begin this new chapter of my life. This time, I was sitting on a plane alone, going back to see the same man who had once sat beside me.

I was excited. I was anxious. The call had come suddenly, and everything about the journey felt rushed. I tried to hold on to the excitement of seeing my family again. I was going home. I was going to see my people. I was going to see my dad.

I didn't know what was waiting for me. I didn't know I was counting down.

When I landed, there were the hellos, the hugs, the tears. I hugged my mum, my brothers, my family. After three years away, I was finally home. But the first place they took me was the hospital, not just the hospital, but the intensive care unit.

Who lands back home after three years and is taken straight to an ICU?

I walked through those doors and saw my dad. Just days earlier, we had been on a video call. He had been sitting upright, looking like someone who would soon be discharged. Now he was lying there, surrounded by machines, with an endotracheal tube in his mouth.

I was home, yet I couldn't even hug my own dad. His condition and the hospital's instructions kept me at a distance. I had spent three years wishing to be close to him, and now that I was finally there, I could barely get close enough to touch him.

I arrived while he was undergoing dialysis. From then on, our days became a cycle: wake up, hospital, home, sleep. Then repeat. There was hardly a day when we were not there. I kept wondering how my family had been living this way for the weeks before I arrived.

Still, we held on to hope.

Our hope was fixed on the possibility of a tracheostomy. We kept looking towards the next procedure, the next day, the next sign that things might get better. We believed that if the procedure went well, perhaps he would be able to speak again. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted his hugs. I wanted something ordinary.

Then, one day, something happened. We were praying beside him when my dad lifted his hand and reached for me. He held me, and he didn't want to let go. Neither did I. I held his hand and looked at him, and then I saw a tear fall from his eye.

He was in pain. I could see it. Yet there he was, holding me. It was the day before his last day. I didn't know it then.

The next day, we went to the hospital as usual. But something felt different. Things didn't look promising. We knew the doctors were preparing my dad for the tracheostomy, and that procedure had become the little light we were holding on to. It meant there was still something to look forward to a possibility that he might eventually speak again.

Around 7 p.m., the doctor came to give us an update. We knew my dad was being prepared for the procedure, so we expected to hear how things were progressing.

She began with what sounded like good news,

"As you all know, we have been taking care of Mr. Mwirigi Edward. His condition had been improving. We had encountered some challenges along the way, but today we were preparing him to proceed with the tracheostomy. As we were preparing him, he went into cardiac arrest. Despite the resuscitation efforts, unfortunately, Mr. Mwirigi Edward left us at around 6:30 p.m.”

Just like that, the little light we had been holding onto went dim.

My hands clenched. My teeth pressed together. Something in me refused to accept the words.

The doctor asked if anyone wanted a moment with him. We were all given the space to step in, to exhale, to say our goodbyes in whatever way we could.

I was the only one in my family who could bring myself to walk into that room. I needed to see him for myself.

I walked towards my dad, the man who had held me at my first breath.

And now I was holding him at his last as I felt his body turning cold beneath my hands.

I had read about death in books. I had seen it in films. I knew the words people used to describe it. But this wasn't a fictional character.

This was my father.

The man who had carried me, held me, supported me, and sat beside me on a plane as he brought me to Hungary. Now I was holding him as the warmth left the hands that had once held mine. The last time I had been in my father's arms was the day before he travelled back to Kenya after bringing me to Hungary. I didn't know it was the last time.

Standing there, I wanted one more conversation. One more laugh. One more hug from my own dad. Something so ordinary that I never imagined I would have to wish for it.

In that moment, holding his palm for the last time, I couldn't ignore how everything had come together.

Three years earlier, he had sat beside me on a plane and brought me to Hungary. Three years later, I was sitting on another plane, going home to see him. I had no idea that I would have only seven days. I could have waited. I could have told myself there would be a better time to go home. But somehow, I made it there.

Seven days before my father went to be with the Lord.

Seven days to be near him.

Seven days to hold his hand.

Seven days I didn't know I was being given.

Maybe that is one of the ways grace looks, not always in giving us the ending we prayed for, but in giving us what we need for the road we are about to walk.

And even in those seven days, we were never truly alone.

There was not a single day at the hospital when it was only my family. Friends came. Relatives came. People kept showing up. When blood was needed, my friends were there to donate. My cousins donated blood and platelets. People kept looking for ways to help, even when there was nothing they could do to change what was happening.

Sometimes people cannot fix what is breaking, but they can help you carry it.

These people were not only there for us. They were there for my dad too. He was a people's person; someone who gave, supported, welcomed, and showed up for others. In those days, I saw people return that love to him in ways I will never forget.

It made me realise how important it is to have people around you. Not people who always know what to say, but people who come. People who stay. People who are willing to stand beside you when there is nothing left to do but hope.

And yet, even with all those people around us, there was one thing I could never understand.

The illness.

I still don't understand what happened to my dad.

I had watched him change through a screen. I had watched him grow weaker through video calls, hoping the next call would show me something different. Then I came home and saw just how much had changed.

How could the man I had seen sitting upright on a video call days earlier now be lying in an ICU, fighting for his life?

What kind of illness takes so much from a person, so quickly?

I still ask myself: What was this?

I may never have an answer that makes sense.

But I know what I saw.

I saw my father fade.

And then, seven days after I came home, he was gone.

Life has a way of reminding us that nothing is promised. We make plans around tomorrow as though tomorrow belongs to us. We wait for the right time, the next holiday, the next visit, the next conversation.

Sometimes, there is no next time.

I went home thinking I was going to see my dad.

I didn't know I was counting down.