It took years to write this story. Each attempt was met with resistance—my hands refused to move, my fingers locked in hesitation, and my heart throbbed with uncomfortable beats. I’d start, then find myself distracted, searching for a glass of water or staring blankly into space as if waiting for something to return. It lingered there, just out of reach, in the depths of my subconscious.
On Thursday, 16th May, as I sipped coffee at Java, the story finally showed up. I knew this was the day to write. It would have been poetic to write it on my birthday, wouldn’t it? I adjusted my laptop, sitting like someone ready to churn out a bestseller. From the outside, I must’ve looked focused, my hands poised for success. And the story, relentless, knocked at my mind, demanding to be told.
Some stories take years to build muscle, slowly fighting their way out against your will. Others push their way in like a reckless driver, cutting through the crowd with a sense of urgency. This story was like that—swift, inevitable, and once it arrived, it ran.
Finally, it was time. The story had grown strong enough, and I couldn’t keep it waiting. We were in conversation, and it asked me, “How long do I have to wait to convince you I’m worth it?” I replied, “Don’t worry, your will has overpowered mine.” And here we go.
It was a warm afternoon, time slipping away like sand. She stood outside, watching the sun set fast as if late on serving the other hemisphere. Just hours earlier, her uncle had sent her rushing to Machakos Law Courts, urgently applying for a hearing on a certificate of urgency. There was no time to waste.
This is the story of a girl, me.
I sat on the veranda of our village house, my legs dangling, unable to touch the ground. The soil beside me was eroding, showing years of neglect. The house, inherited, had been my home since birth. The cardboard walls were chipped, faded by the harsh sun of Ukambani.
The world felt like it had come to a halt. I sat there, wondering if two days were enough to pass judgment on a man who had seemed not so ill. My thoughts wandered to the fragility of the body, how it blooms and withers like a flower. My father, once a towering fortress, a giant in my eyes, was now frail. His small car could tell the story of the man who once sat tall behind its wheel, but now… nothing.
He had been rushed to the hospital on Tuesday, and by Thursday afternoon, I received the call. As if that weren’t enough, I had to beg for the right to be recognized as his child, even in death. The pain was unbearable, but there was no time to mourn. I had to prove that I, too, belonged to him.
In the lawyer’s office, my mind swirled with legal jargon. I was there to stop a burial, to seek a court order. The urgency felt foreign, overwhelming. I had to act fast, or they would bury my father without acknowledging my existence. Why did I care? Why seek recognition for a man who couldn’t come back to life? Because a father gives identity—a place to belong. I had lost that once, in a way I will tell another time, but I wouldn’t lose it again.
Growing up in a polygamous family was never easy, especially with the tension between the two families. Yet, despite everything, my father always took care of us. We knew he was our father, but he never brought the families together. Typical of many African men, he kept them separate. But we knew each other. I was a flower girl at my eldest step brother’s wedding. My eldest step sister taught at the school my sister and I attended, a job my mother had helped her get. We lived in the same plot of land, though I wish I could call it an apartment. I grew up mostly with my maternal grandparents in the village, but I was still cherished. In fact I was their “doll.”
So yes, I knew my step siblings. We spent holidays together. I visited my stepmother’s family, and there are photos to prove it. Before everything became complicated, I knew them well.
From that lawyer’s office, I made endless trips to the cyber café, printing documents, searching for birth certificates, making sure everything was in order. I needed proof for the courts. But I also had to deal with fake calls from relatives, accusations from others who questioned why we hadn’t settled things when my father was alive. The truth is, from 2016 onward, no month went by without discussions of settling matters between the families.
2022 marked 32 years between my parents. Through the highs and lows, my father never settled things as he should have. If he had, perhaps the fight for recognition wouldn’t have been so bitter. But no matter what, inheritance isn’t something you work for—it’s your right by virtue of being born into a family.
So, it came time to serve the court order, to stop the burial. It required courage—courage that my sister, Azucar, had when I couldn’t summon it. I was too broken by everything we had already been through. Earlier, during a family discussion, a demeaning agreement had been reached: My mother would allow the burial to continue as planned,( without acknowledging my father’s second family), and they would revisit things by September of that same year. The burial was in June. Just a few months to September.
I almost settled. Then I saw the agreement.
It was hastily written on a piece of an exercise book paper, unsigned, unsealed, no date and incomplete. That’s when I knew—we were about to be scammed. The truth is, one year after my father’s burial, no sitting has ever taken place as the paper had promised.
The day of the burial arrived. It remains the hardest day I’ve endured—not because I had to let my father go, but because of the circumstances surrounding it. Blood is a difficult thing to fight. My family is large, impossible to miss in a crowd. Some came to see the siblings they never knew existed.
But I also met people I never knew. Strangers offering condolences, their faces unfamiliar. Near the end of the day, I saw one woman—she resembled my father, unmistakably his sister.My aunt That was a moment of lightness, like he was still with us. I’ve stayed in contact with her ever since.Every minute shared with her lightens dads demise.
So, it’s a girl’s desperate plea:
I need a grave, a place to lay him down,
To give him rest, to honor what He is.
He never denied me life—
I won’t deny him in death.
He was there, laughing with us,
I called, and he answered—
He called, and I ran.
He remembered my birthdays,
The daughter of the woman he loved.
You can’t replace him.
So let me, let me—
Mourn my old man.
Let me bury my dad,
Let me bury my father.
written by storieshetells (Fynn) re dited by Douglas Ogutu Vema