2025!

Kenya was planned yet not planned. From the time I was in hospital with mom, I looked forward to getting onto the bus and staying quiet on my own. Somewhere in November of 2019, I found myself very stressed and the only thing that was going to calm my nerves was getting on the bus. I went to Rwanda for just about 24 hours and returned more sound.

In January this year, I wanted to get on the bus but I wasn’t sure about where to go. I’d promised myself that the moment mom goes back to work, I’ll travel. I thought that was going to be the only scarring thing for me to see in 2025.

I said 2025 was going to be a year of many firsts and I was so pumped for it but between mid Jan upto mid June, I saw firsts that were slowly swallowing me into oblivion.

It was the first time in my 30 years on earth when I saw my mother sick and unable to walk. She couldn’t sit on her own without support. Of course she couldn’t stand or walk. On the 4th day in hospital, mom could have died while I watched. I really do not know why amongst all the days we were there, that’s the day I asked what the numbers on the monitor meant. The physiotherapist said the Oxygen levels were not supposed to drop to 60. About 2 hours after he left, they went down to 20. I remember running to the nurses’ station. I saw no familiar face. I stuttered. I wasn’t sure the new face would do the right thing but I managed to speak and he ran to mom. That whole day we swang between close to normal and low oxygen levels. In such a short time, I’d learned what the machine sounds like when the levels are low and I’d have to offer extra support. I was mostly in charge of the hospital logistics. Sarah and my sister in law were the ones who slept in the hospital. That night, on my way back home, I was stunned by how the world was moving on yet mine was just described by room number 7.

Just when mom had grown strong enough to use the walker without me necessarily carrying her weight, an aunt died on 22nd February. On the 24th, we buried her. By then I’d been pressing hard to see how best I could get back to work. I was working on the African Woman Edition colouring book.

On the 26th, an uncle died. I remember that night when the news came in, I was doing the last edits of the book. All I muttered to myself was “Fuck!”. I took deep breaths. I wanted to hear myself think. I wanted to get the book out of the way and out to the public. On 1st March, we buried my uncle. I saw a beloved uncle fail to speak and it broke me. For all the years of my childhood, teenage, and adulthood we had bantered and also talked about serious things and never had I seen him crushed under the weight of anything – grief was not even one of them. I’d let out as many deep breaths as I could to self regulate but seeing him fail to speak had me undone. He lost his brother and best friend and there were no words to match the loss.

Joan Amono must have come home a week after. I told her that I’d noticed my forgetfulness had grown unusual. She lightly said “Nabu don’t get dementia on us”. I hadn’t thought of it in that direction but when she left, I decided to rest more and not think so much about work. The 2025 work plan was perfect and I was excited for it but it was now 3 months and nothing had been done. I was supposed to have an event in May and nothing was happening. I chose to sleep and heal my body of the happenings of January – 1st Match.

I felt better in the third week of March. I was talking to partners. They assured me that we can work out something for May. They gassed me up. I was excited that not all was lost. Calls were being made. Strategies aligned. Tell me why my other beloved aunt chose to die on 23rd March. I didn’t fight. I let go of work with ease. That whole week was dedicated to working around her burial preparations both in Kampala and the village.

We returned to Kampala on 1st April. I came back with a silent mantra. I’m not getting into any more problems. I need to work. I said it over and over and when I got home, mom welcomed me back and added the news about my grandfather being attacked by a bull. I think if I had it in me, I’d have fallen to the ground and asked that I don’t get told any more problems. I clenched my jaws and walked to my bedroom. I didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t ask how he was. The people who have been around me for long know how much I love that man. He’s my first male figure. On my father’s death bed, he was asked to be our guardian and he did not hesitate. He was the chaplain of Lubaga hospital by then. I was in my mother’s womb. So if I got to learn about how love is expressed, I carried some of his expressions of love. Gentle and silent yet visible. But there I was an empty emotionless shell. Not sad. Not happy. Not tired. Not strong. I was just there.

I stayed in bed longer on Monday. Even when guilt tried to consume me, I knew I’d successfully blocked that problem; and I was ready to figure out life thereafter.

Tuesday night I got a haste phone call from a Church youth. He was asking for our former maid’s son’s full name. I told him. He hang up. I called him. Twice. No response. He finally picked the third call and said “Vincent has been detained at the police station but let me come home”. This guy is the one who helped us get Vincent his current job at a Motor garage. The bosses of the garage informed him about these developments late and took on the responsibility to alert us. He didn’t want the news to go straight to mom given her medical status.

Vincent being detained is such a random thing to even think of. Never heard of any trouble from him. Quite a reserved person and so we really wanted to find out what happened. I also know that sometimes kids play quiet at home but are totally different out in the public so I was curious. It turns out one of the boys he worked with lost his phone while at work and decided to bring police and have those who were present arrested. While at the station, the following day, his bosses asked “you should have arrested the other one but what did you want from Vincent?”

I knew our Vincent didn’t play the cards of a quiet and disciplined boy. He was those things because his bosses vouched for them too. I knew that was the time to firefight this case until it died. It took a couple of weeks but we managed.

The week Vincent was detained though. My cousin brought her baby home to celebrate the baby’s birthday. The baby and I fought. She didn’t want to be touched and I was also assuring her that I can actually carry her away from the mother. Went outside the house. I bribed her. I tried my best. She didn’t relent. I gave up and returned her to her mother. We sang, cut cake and took pictures.

The following day, while in the washroom, I tried to assess myself. Where I had left off before the burial week and what direction I wanted to take. I knew everything that had happened that week and yet the day before seemed blank. I stretched as far back as how I’d woken up but there was nothing. What lunch we ate. Nothing. It didn’t make sense at all how a day was that blank. I also don’t know what made me open my phone camera but in that small circle that leads to the gallery I saw something that made me curious. I tapped it and it led me to all these pictures and videos of the birthday. My jaw dropped. I knew this was more serious than I’d thought it to be.

I knew the stress was slowly eating away my ability to remember things. I let go of work. I decided to sleep for 7-8 hours. I was on the hunt for happy and love content. I knew the stress hormones in my body were high. For so long I didn’t know what it meant to feel happiness. It was also easier for me to remember sadness than it was to remember happiness.

Much as my hair started falling out in May, due to stress, I believe I did manage quite well from mid April to early June before Jjaajja Flora died. I think if I hadn’t done the work, in those weeks, Jjaajja’s death would have led me to a darkness I wouldn’t find words to describe. We buried her in Nakifuma. I used my boda guy to go for the burial and I cried all the way from home to the burial grounds and cried the whole journey back home. My head was pounding then and yet I couldn’t stop crying. Jjaajja Flora died with unanswered questions and when people asked how we were going to manage, I still had no answer.

I think by the time Jjaajja Flora died, I had gotten the chance to process the other deaths in the year. She died at the time, I was probably ready enough to properly grieve the other loved ones. Someone called it compounded grief. For all the fears and deaths, I’d experienced in the months prior, I’d never fully grieved. The pain I felt was indescribable. I almost opened my phone to cry on Facebook live. I was in so much pain that I wanted to express, even when I didn’t know how. I don’t know what I hoped for from the live but it also made sense why I see some people cry on social media lives.

There was a time when Gideon Ntumwa commended me for managing well and let out a soft chuckle. If he only knew that just days before I was ready to have a live mourning session.

June & July was for total recovery. To figure out myself. To remember the things I used to love. I couldn’t find the person that started conversations with ease. For a person that enjoyed food with chillies, chillies now tasted so foreign on my tongue. It used to be easy for me to tell stories but I couldn’t anymore. Memes were no longer a thing. I didn’t feel anything when I saw them. The podcaster that I knew, I was no longer in touch with her. I was now panicking because it now looked like the beginning of the death of Hash Time with Nabuguzi Kiwanuka. I saw myself going down another season of spiraling. I let go and accepted that I will just go with whatever comes, day by day. I stopped figuring out how best to start the 2025 work plan.

I started experiencing some sense of sanity in August. I also started work in that month. I worked with reminders and practiced more presence. By October, my body was no longer tensed.

I am still slower on myself. I see some names on here and I say “Ow I’ve seen this name before”.

I told my psychologist friend about how much it scares me to set dates in 2026 and she hinted on how cumbersome trauma can be. I was so gassed up for 2025, it scared me to be excited about another start of another year.

I’m here though. It’s easier to remember some things and revel in joy. My days in Kenya also made me realize I have been firefighting all year. What I called rest, was just me trying to heal from something. I had to do some work there but out of the 4 tasks I envisioned, I only did one and chose to pull the plug.

If there’s anything I’m grateful for this year, it’s the love and support I’ve experienced from the people who loved me in the ways they thought they should. Some knew I was drowning and the others didn’t and yet their love healed parts of me that had started dying.

Merry Christmas. And for whatever 2026 brings, I pray for your fortitude.

Written by

Nabuguzi. Kiwanuka

Lawyer. Founder, Director, CEO at Equate Foundation. Podcaster - Hash Time with Nabuguzi Kiwanuka. Drawer. Dance lover. Music lover. Risk-taker. Daily learner.

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