A month ago, we had our fifth death from our college class of less than two decades ago.
It was a class of just a hundred undergrads, so as we explore the lower levels of the fourth floor, five percent of us have checked out from this journey of life. Which would be okay if those deaths were all natural, say from accidents or corona-like viruses, because at least we’d be able to say that such is life, and ‘you never know the day or the hour’, etc.
The problem is four out of five of those deaths were suicides! And three were males!
Put aside, for a moment, the notion that perhaps my alumni is part of a ‘Final Destination’ type group, whom the Grim Reaper relentlessly stalks through the days and the years and the decades (actually, isn’t that what Death does with us all)?
Someday, in 2079 AD, there will be the very last member of our college class from the start of the century, the only member of LLB UON 2001. But at least s/he will have full powers as the solitary Group Admin.
Gallows’ humour aside, the young woman of our lot who passed did so through a deadly combo of drugs, suffering from a terminal illness.
One guy drove his moti into a tree, my college chess-mate Magu jumped in front of a 3am bus speeding to Garissa, and the recent gentleman purportedly hung himself from a tree.
Magu’s suicide horrified the nation, mostly because he annihilated his entire family in the process (or, perhaps, the religious cult he was involved with, which had its HQ in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria did, framed the whole thing, and inherited his property).
The whole thing still haunts a corner of my mind (and perhaps I ought to exorcise it with a faction crime noir, ‘In Hot Blood’ much as writer Truman Capote did in 1957 with ‘In Cold Blood’). But these incidents bear out the worldwide data – for every two women who commit suicide, seven to eight men kill themselves. Why so?
Many men get into a tunnel vision of feeling financially hopeless, especially when laid off, or when their businesses flop. And, mark my words, this horrid COVID19 will be the tombstone of many jobs, businesses and the basis of redundancies.
Because many men’s self-worth is tied to their titles or jobs or ‘net worth,’ when the net is pulled away and they fall down hard, they feel worthless, and a few of those drown – maybe in debt until they seek Death. And if you call the Grim Reaper, He is never mteja.
Consider a Mzee Musa somewhere in Kilifi right now. He worked for government all his life, was retired in 2010 at 55, and lives off his pension. Musa married ‘late’ at 35, and got married to a young woman Habibi, who was just 19.
They have three kids – 29, 27 and 25 – one of whom went to USA, the other to UAE, with the 29-year-old working in Nairobi, where s/he set up a business for Mom (Dad having worked in Nairobi all his life, visiting them for a weekend every two/three months, so he’s a stranger).
Never mind that his sweat put them through school, now he’s mostly alone in ushago, with Habibi having finally discovered life (and maybe a lover) in her 40s, and now it is her turn to pay him quarterly visits. During this Covid-19 county lockdown, Mzee Musa may drink pesticides.
Then there are the undiagnosed depressions among guys, which they never want to talk about. *True story – I have this pal whose mom passed away in 2000, followed by the Dad in 2002. His sister was in a fatal car crash in 2005, his beloved grandma died (in her sleep) in 2008, kid bro killed by thugs in 2011, wife collapsed (aneurism) and died in 2015, and young daughter drowned at school in 2017.
My pal was a successful Beamer-driving businessman, but he finally snapped!
And has been drinking himself to death these last three years, resisting all rehabilitation.
tonyadamske@gmail.com
What’s your most embarrassing childhood memory?