Sunday 17 January 2016

LIVING LIKE ITS MY LAST by Daisy Waitherero Wambua

I have short episodes where I crave death. For my body to give in and succumb to the excruciating pain and useless battles. My armor lies popped open on the table written in some gibberish that I try to read every now and then. It’s my source of comfort, the doctors say it’s my Messiah, they are right in their own way. A crucifix stands in my bank account, if anything, there lays my Golgotha. In times like these is when family and friends become indispensable.

My eyes seem bloodshot each time I look in the mirror, “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the prettiest of them all?” My jet black silky hair covers quarter of my face, my make-up precedes perfection, my eyebrows seem surreal and Mac lipstick should seriously consider hiring me as an ambassador. A mash up of Jennifer Lawrence, Khloe Kardashian and Angelina Jolie, no angel comes close and no devil seems more enticing. If only my doctors would halt the medical marijuana maybe my imaginations would tone down. Cancer stage four, hail the heavens and curse upon the fallen angel.

I could have counted a few things that would have been be my Achilles’s heel. But darn cancer, it has some stealth, a certain creep almost like team mafisi but a little more cunning. I have different wigs lying on my dresser, all bearing names; Shaniqua for my ghetto fabulous days, Juliette for the girl next door feel and Precious for the days that life’s returns are less than my givings. Multiple scarves too, hair can be daunting and a tad too cumbersome. These simpletons make me want to wake up every single day plus other mixed bag of reasons.

My old reserves melt daily if not an hourly basis. They look at me different, like am a weakling of some sort, a child whose daily munch is monitored. Strangers take a couple glances more so to satisfy their curiosity and less to issue pity. Few ask at first by hints then by open pressure, they become uneasy upon disclosure then get overcome by guilt for their inquisition. Michael Jackson sang ‘Human Nature’ so I don’t hold my throat when they start asking why. I am still far from tasting the serenity of my health but I am as young as I can be and my vitality as high as it can rise. I grieve to say that I may not see tomorrow but I rejoice in living today like my last.

“I know that I will live long”. “No, I believe I will live long”. I am not my disease, I am not its ramifications.
                                                                                                        -Survivor Series

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