As a caregiver, hope becomes your constant companion. Every day, you measure small victories — a smile after pain, a steady breath after a hard night, a whispered “thank you” that keeps you going. You learn to live in the in-between: between fear and faith, between loss and life. I held on to hope like oxygen, believing that my patient would make it through one more day, one more night, one more sunrise. That was my constant view of how Edward a friend made me feel. From saying little prayer to laughing on little actions then to discussing next actions and making late night calls. The constant thoughts of “I never signed up for this and to the constant what in the lord’s name did I walk into”. The experience plus other life experiences in time make you strong to see each day as it comes and view each person as a resource to the trouble you go through. Health is wealth, guard your own at all costs. 

And then — death came. Quiet, steady, final.

There’s a silence that follows death which no training prepares you for. It’s not just the absence of breath; it’s the absence of purpose that hits hardest. You wake up the next minute still ready to check temperatures, oxygen levels and change their sleeping position but then reminded that he’s rested from the cries of those who knew him well and looked upon him for everything. When my patient died, I felt a strange emptiness — part grief, part guilt, part disbelief. I had been so hopeful. Maybe too hopeful. But how can a caregiver live without hope?

And then, just few days later, the nation lost Raila Amolo Odinga — Baba. The grief that flooded the country mirrored my own in ways I couldn’t explain. Streets fell silent, voices broke, and Kenya held its breath. I saw the same sorrow I felt reflected on faces I didn’t know — a shared mourning, not just for a man, but for what he represented: endurance, struggle, hope. It made me realize something profound — that grief, whether personal or national, is a language of love. To mourn deeply is to have hoped deeply. To cry for someone is to admit they mattered.

In losing my patient, and watching a nation lose Baba, I saw how death does not just end a life — it rearranges the living. It makes us check in with our own hearts, with each other, with what truly sustains us. Maybe that’s what death leaves us with — not answers, but reminders. That every act of care, every moment of hope, every heartbeat we witness, is sacred.

To care is to risk heartbreak. But even in death, that care — that love — is what remains. 💔 I learned to count time not in hours, but in heartbeats. Each breath quiet a victory — each smile, a promise that tomorrow might still come. Caregiving is faith in motion..

Keep Praying for Winnie Odinga and other Caregivers out there!

© JMS2025