We received news that my father had lost two of his colleagues to Covid-19 with fear and apprehension.
We did not know whether he had also contracted the deadly disease. He came home one day in July and said that one of his bosses had tested positive. He was hospitalised and in a month, he was dead.
Being someone I knew very well, his demise really touched me and our entire family.
Two days after he was buried, another of my father’s former colleagues also died after only two weeks in hospital.
In the course of that week, dad went down with a serious flu. He complained of a splitting headache, running nose and dry cough among others. We were scared stiff.
Mum begged him to get tested to no avail. He resorted to self-medication, promising us that he would be alright. As a precautionary measure, he isolated himself in his bedroom. It was on a Wednesday when he finally gathered his courage and went to the Kenyatta National Hospital for the test. Being a walking distance from our house, he left the house at 6.20am. He was tested an hour or so later.
We waited for the results with bated breath. The next Tuesday, he went for his results. I was outside our house with my mum basking in the sun when we saw him coming back. He was clutching a brown envelope in his right hand. He looked crushed. My heart skipped a bit while mum threw her hands on her head and gasped in horror. Without uttering a word, he sanitised his hands and entered the house. He threw himself on the sofa and faced the wall, his face hidden in his elbow.
An eerie silence engulfed our sitting room. Dad said nothing. Then I noticed that he was laughing silently. He stood up and hugged us. He was negative! He apologised profusely for the prank. Mum warned him never to attempt that again. We were happy that dad had heeded the call to go for testing.
Selpha Laura Malika, 20, is awaiting to join Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat).
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