News…. Facts, information and statistics.

When old people die, I celebrate. When young people die, I mourn. I think about all they would have become and I get into tears. Unfortunately most time you hear someone is dead, you feel sorry for them and continue living your life. They say life must go on. That is the saddest thing. Life must continue.

Last Saturday in the evening, I sat with my mother in the kitchen as we waited supper to get ready. Then the radio news presenter announced about a tragedy that had happened early that evening killing a hundred people. The news was just news. Mere facts, information and statistics. My heart was not moved by the news. I remember commenting and say the way people should be taught a lesson not to touch other peoples’ things.

At that instant my mum was just praying for the families and friends of the deceased. She went ahead telling me how someone will not see their husband again. That someone will not see their wife again. She was sad. She was feeling the news. She heard them beyond just being information.

Later the next day I was going back to the big city. I decided to choose the matatu I want to go with, something I learnt from my dad. He told me to be checking the state of the tyres and the condition of the seats. And on realizing the matatu on line did not qualify to carry me, I ducked out of the queue and went my way looking for another matatu.

Later that night as I listened to the evening news, I was in tears. The radio presenter read out the news about a matatu that had a head on collision with a small car on Nyeri-Nairobi highway killing two people on spot and seriously injuring others. At that time those were not news, they were a reality I had seen with my own eyes.

After getting another matatu to the city we left peacefully until after Sagana when we found the matatu I had refused to enter had had an accident killing two people on the spot as others were ferried to hospital. The two dead men lay lifeless on the roadside. Passengers on other matatus were looking all this in horror.

As usual the evening news must have been facts, information and statistics to most listeners all over the country. But that evening I did not just hear the news, I felt them. I just knew someone would not see their dad again, coz I had seen him lying lifelessly on the roadside.

That weekend my attitude was transformed. My perspective had expanded.