Choosing Gratitude

I was born on December 31st, 1987 - the last day of the year. Unlike my saviour Jesus Christ, nobody prophesied my birth years before I was begotten. And nature didn't respond to my birth in any unusual way. The dogs in my home area barked as usual; the birds flew around nonchalantly as they have always done; and no extra star twinkled on the night of that day I was born.

Today, thirty years after I was born, I am still alive and kicking. I am blessed beyond measure with good health, a supportive family and quite a number of people I can count as friends. I am truly blessed.

And do you know why I am considering myself blessed? Because several of my contemporaries didn't make it to today. Let me tell you about two of them. Only two.

The first is my brother Stephen Ndonga who was born in 1996 and passed away while still an infant. I can still see him as a baby wrapped in sheets.

That night Mum brought baby Stephen Ndonga at home, I asked her where she had gotten him from. Mum told me that she had bought him in a supermarket. Of course I believed her. And for several days after baby Stephen Ndonga became part of our family, Mum regularly asked me to look after him.

Then one afternoon after I came home from school that year 1996, I found a crowd of visitors at our homestead. My kid brother Symo was quick to inform me that baby Stephen Ndonga had passed on earlier that day. The bad news made me weep afterwards as I came back home, this time from buying something in a nearby kiosk.

Imagine baby Stephen Ndonga, who was begotten by the same mother and father as me, didn't live to see this day. But for fate, I could easily have been the one who passed away.

The second contemporary of mine I will tell you about who didn't live to see this day is Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy who came to public attention at the turn of this century for championing people with HIV/AIDS to be open about the disease.

Nkosi Johnson was born on February 4th, 1989, about a year after me. But he had the unfortunate fate of contracting HIV from his mother - a virus that eventually claimed his life in 2001.

In 2001, I was in Standard Eight diligently studying to ace my national primary school exams so that I could be admitted to Starehe Boys' Centre, the then Kenya's top ranked high school. (I made it.) But imagine as I studied diligently to join Starehe, Nkosi Johnson was preparing to die. Am I not truly blessed?

Yes, I am truly blessed to be alive and kicking today. As a result, I have now chosen to practise gratitude, a virtue that is on everybody's lips but in a few people's practice. So as from today, I have purposed to complain less and be grateful more. Adieu!