On the 22nd day of July 2007 at 3.15pm, I woke up from the grogginess of anesthesia, my Aunt Nuru who has been with me through-out labour up to the time she signed the consent for a caesarean operation, happily announced “it’s a baby boy!!” Japs faced his first shocker on his 8th day on earth…with gunshots, anxiety and tension emanating from violence from a highly contested general election in Kenya….could that have contributed to his condition? We shall never tell….After 90 days in a maternity leave, I reluctantly made arrangements to leave the baby with a house-help and resume duties at my place of work….could that have contributed to his condition? We shall never tell….One morning when preparing his baby cot, I unconsciously placed my 3-month old bundle on top of a double deck bed, he fell down with a thud, I was momentarily paralysed in shock…hey there don’t start cursing me…how could I have known that a 3-month old baby would in a flash move to the edge of a bed and suddenly fall?? When I recovered, I gently lifted my poor baby from the floor, soothed his agonising cry and rushed him to the hospital, a CT scan and x-rays were done to determine the extent of brain damage, fortunately all was well…I heaved a sigh of relief, did a quick prayer to the Almighty and thought…may be it was the carpet that cushioned the fall, or was it God’s hands?...could this have contributed to his condition? We shall never know…From the time Japs was diagnosed with autism…countless questions with no answers have crossed my mind. Grief describes an individual’s thoughts and feelings associated with the loss of someone or something significant to them. Grieving is a personal experience and therefore one’s grief experience cannot be compared to someone else’s”. I have gone through a myriad of grief coming to terms with Japs Autism; from anticipatory grief, to delayed grief; to blocked grief; to aborted grief; to complicated grief reactions….

Karen Nancy
Mombasa, Kenya