I cry about many things well, shhhh! Not many people know about that. But yes, I am very weepy. I cry when I am hurt, I cry when I am happy, I cry when am disappointed, I cry when I am in trouble, the kind of trouble that you don’t know how to get out, I cry when I am hopeless, I cry for and with my friends when they are in pain, I cry when I want to be strong, I cry when I read an emotional book, I cry when I watch emotional movies, like The diary of a tired black woman or Olympus has fallen, or Independence day, don’t ask me what is so emotional about it, anyhow that’s me.

The last four days in this country has been one long movie, and yeah, movies are overrated. Its nothing close to the real deal. Not because I was in there, but because in my tears I have always identified with the characters in my books, movies, life and people I have encountered. And the last four days has been very weepy indeed. I wept not because of the victims, God knows I prayed for them in my little ways but because of the kindness I have witnessed from that very first day. I saw people run in to try save people whose names they did not so much care about, run out of that building with children whose parents would be sorted later, drivers ferry unknown people to hospitals, people donate food and drinks to the rescue teams and energy drinks to blood donors and most overwhelmingly, people donate pints and pints of blood and give a shilling or two, a thousand or five, just to save another Kenya, just to be with another Kenyan in a moment of suffering.

For the first time in a very long time, we have been one, we have been Kenyans, not divided by race or tribe or political affiliations and associations but united by adversity, where all we needed to rise against was a monster called the terrorist.  This made true the sayng we often read that in every desert of sorrow there is an oasis of love and that behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason (Khaled Hosseini, A thousand Splendid Sins). We have all witnessed pure love in action. Kenyans being a shoulder to fellow Kenyans.

My biggest lesson from this is, Kenyans are kind people who love each other.I still remember even during the Haiti Quake Kenyans managed to collect something to donate to that nation. I also know without a doubt that we are a united nation. This has been evidenced by the many times we have united in various activities, both humanitarian and leisure, read Kenyans for Kenya,  Rugby Sevens, Athletic Championships, Marathons and runs. We have always had one common enemy who saws seeds of discord, someone called the politician. Maybe it is time we rethink about the politician,  and give him less significant post that he has been taking in our lives, because as Mahatma Gandhi once said, If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change.  We have managed to unite and build each other anyway with a minimal role from the politician(Am not against good leadership fostering unity, am against divisive politics). Further,  Gandhi says that we cannot be hurt by others wothout our permission. Read, we allow him, politician, to divide us.  It is also said that there is calm in the eyes of a storm. I don’t know what the victims of this Westgate incident went through each day, I may only imagine from the clips that the media have shown. But all that I know is, people prayed for them, people sacrificed something to share in this moment, people tried and are still trying to show solidarity with them and in this, no matter how hard they were hit, they were and still are being consoled by the fact that they are not alone. They get some sort of footing on the shaky ground knowing that someone is travelling this road with them. At least I hope and pray that it is a consolation…

To all of us affected directly or indirectly, let us weep because as Shakespeare once said, to weep is to make less the grief, but let us not cloud ourselves in so much sorrow we forget the smile of the friend, relative, neighbor and fried, known or unknown to us, smiling down on us saing, joy comes in the morning. To all of us who go through trials every day, who weep in loneliness from the hurt that we think no one understands, may we derive consolation in knowing that we are not alone, that in that storm that we go through everyday, someone somewhere known or unknown to us, is sharing in the pain, is praying, is travelling that stormy path with us and if we look close enough, if we focus in the eye instead of the storm we will realize that these people are not very far from us. They are here, as one, because we, as a humanity will always be one! We are a community of brotherhood… And sisterhood for that matter…

We are one,we if only we can remember that…