It keeps haunting me

Its now 10 years after the incident, yet i recall it just as it were fresh, or rather what happened just the other hour. Tears still roll down even after drying a thousand times. Oops, sorry, i forgot to tell you, I'm Joshua, the son whose father thought he would never see bread again. I am now 18, a full grown citizen, still in the same residence where dad was burned alive. I was peeping through from a small hole as the incident occurred. I don't know why, but i don't just have the courage to go out to save dad. It is very true, i wouldn't have seen bread had i not made this decision that life gave me to choose. Was it that i never cared about dad or just that fear held be behind.

Life told me, "you have two decisions, eat from what is given to you for your education, or..." i guess you know the other option. This was after i went to some relatives begging for food. Hunger of weeks, yet people threw me out, other insulting while the rest abusing. Was it all my fault that i chose to be whoever i was?

I took the very step in my life, spend the money to get food for me and my siblings and mom. Yea, the money that was given to me by one of my uncles to move on with education shortly before he breath his last, and these were his final words "dear, take this to educate yourself so as you can grow to be someone in life".

Death snatched the only hope of our survival. My dad and uncle both one after the other. Uncle had cancer for two years, he used to battle his life. He was the only educated person in the family since he got to the O levels. And now he is gone. Death never looks at who you are.

This is how life was, how i actually survived. I saw bread, but had to sacrifice studies for it.

My dad had just seen class five, nit that he wasn't interested, but poverty snatched his childhood right to education.

Life surely has been tough. I still keep wondering why they killed him, leaving me behind with my mom and two younger sisters, Alice and Anne. Both of whom are now studying, having the opportunity that was once snatched from me by this cruel world. Could be, God wanted me to be someone else rather than the illiterate-educated ones,or should i say "the wise fools". Those who ignore reality and deny justice even after knowing the truth and attaining to the best level of education.

"Joshua" i recall his voice, "work hard my son, i wouldnt wish to see you in my shoes" he used to claim. Probably he was guilty for giving me a life full of poverty. But it wasn't his fault either. Well, he was justpoor to afford himself good education, his father was a small scale fruit vendor, they could hardly survive on a loaf of bread a day.

This always pained my dad, so he always wished to bring a loaf home, even if it means stealing, so as we dont go to bed hungry, and atleast he isnt any worse than his father.

My grandfather, mr. Kangetha, was a very hardworking and a strong man, well, probably not too strong to survive after grandma's death. He was broken, he would sit down hours as tears rolled down until the tears whispered to themselves saying that there has never been such a love story as my grandpa's ever before.

He died just a month and a half after grandma took her final journey. Since then, dad knew that all he had was struggle to live and live to struggle.

I look at dad's thingira, "this one day will belong to you, when you are a man, the king to the throne of this family" thats what he used to say, well i never thought that i would have to take over the kingdom of poverty too soon. Well, i had no option, i was now the head to the family, the father to my siblings.

As i sat down on a twenty year old stool, probably inherited by my father from his father, the great, and now is what i get as inheritance, mom comes in and sits on the floor besides the stool.

"son"she says, "your father wasn't that bad a person, he did this for our survival" she added as she swallowed a lump of saliva that seemed as if it was semi solid. "i know" i replied with a low voice. She gave me a tight hug which told me "you are the only hope"

I sat down for an hour wondering on how I'll manage to make ends meet, or is it that I'll have to do it the same way as my father did it?