Goodbye November. Yet again you came and left us sore. You plucked yet another rose from our beautiful colourful garden. You rubbed salt into a wound that was in the process of healing. Like a thief in the night, you came and grabbed what was ours.

The 2nd of November is not one of my favorite days of the calendar since 2014. This year it was supposed to be that day again where I purposely celebrate my eldest sister’s birthday and fight hard not to cry over the dear brother I lost. But no, I had to lose my niece. How does that happen? Why?

Katso was the 2nd of my nieces, one of those who robbed me of my childhood – imagine being called an aunt at six years of age. She was a pretty little baby, yeah the doll type with marble eyes. She was also light and back then that automatically earned one a place in the category of beauty. You would know how most people then used all sorts of creams to lighten their skins (well, they still do). She was a natural and my mother tells us how people would volunteer to wash their hands before they held her as a baby.

She was a stubborn little girl and loud at that. She would instruct her mother to carry her on her back, with further instructions to move around. She was attached to her bottle so much that she bit off the tit and left a wide hole to suit her. She was forced to leave the bottle when she had sores in her mouth, thankfully, because other methods had failed.

She was a carefree soul, not your usual beauties. She loved her chewing gum and so as a responsible aunt I used to coach her on chewing techniques. That did not yield the desired results unfortunately. As I said earlier, she was loud. I always asked her to lower her voice, always. Her laughter was just as loud. I have no idea how I was born into a family of loud people, I am the quietest and calmest. She would laugh at me because my kids are loud as well.

She was a hard worker and very ambitious. During her school days she was not the type to be pushed to read. She did that all on her own. I admired that about her. On a good day at home she could do all her chores cheerfully. She had her future worked out until one day, when she was still pursuing her degree, she was diagnosed with a life threatening disease. With the help of God and her strong will she fought hard. It was an uphill battle.

This is where her courage was revealed. She had really bad days but on better days she would live. She loved driving no matter how weak she was. She managed to serve her full two years of internship.In spite of it all, she never stopped applying for jobs.

She loved singing and she was a good singer. There is a difference of course. A week after I left home, I video called her mother and she typically interrupted our conversation with a song we used to sing a while back. For some reason I joined her and we sang the following verse;

Sweet is the spring

Charming are the birds

that sing in the morn

Pleasant oh pleasant is the rising sun

The song goes on to speak about the land looking delightful and beautiful. Days later I can’t help but to wonder about that choice of song. I find myself singing it the way we used to and laughing at how I used to make her and her sister sing like the Holy Cross Choir.

My sister lost her first born and friend. They were inseparable. They argued a lot just as friends do but they were a team. Her younger sister lost her only sister. Her daughter lost a mother. I lost a niece whom I mothered for a good while. My family lost one they loved.

November we would love to regard you as a good month. In future please be kind to us.