John the tea man

He is a short, well built, Musoga man. Very soft spoken, hardly says a word except when he is greeting. He is one of the first to arrive in office and probably the last to leave in the evening. When I met him 5 years ago, I was impressed with how neat he was, he kept his office clean. One of the few men that wears a T-shirt underneath his shirt. In most offices his job is handled by a woman, so that makes him unique. John is our tea man.

Every morning he washes the flasks, boils water in the heater and makes tea for an office of about 30 people. Whenever we have office meetings he will make special preparations – tea and snacks depending who is attending the meeting. He will also supervise the distribution of flowers for the offices. He has done this for over 6 years.
His profession is belittled but when he is off duty, his absence impacts us severely.
We start the day with a daily doze of coffee or hot cup of tea courtesy of John. But as selfish human beings, we are never keen to relate with colleagues at a lower level. We pose the question “what will it benefit me?”. We are often drawn to people we think will help us in one way or another, in the office it’s about getting a pay rise or a promotion.

Anyway, so it's nice to see John again. I stopped by the office one Saturday morning and found him supervising the cleaners. There was no better time to catch up - find out how he is doing. Our conversation went somewhat like this:

“So John, how are you?”

“I’m fine thanks, how are you?”

“I’m ok”

“How is the family?”

“Oh! It is in a mess”

I immediately thought, he’d had a disagreement with his wife and they were separated.

“What do you mean? What kind of mess?”

“My wife! My wife passed away on the 1st of January. She was pregnant. She died during child birth.”

My eyes begun to water.

Then he said, “my child died too, they all went”

I felt a huge lamp in my throat.

“John, I am so sorry!”

“Thank you. You see me here but honestly It’s just my body but my mind is far. I can’t stop blaming myself for what happened”.

Our conversation was interrupted. I picked it up a week later, I was curious to know why he blamed himself.
He said, while his wife was pregnant he had a dream about a dead baby. Looking back, he thinks it was a warning that he should have acted on - told his wife about -shared with someone.
Life is torture right now, with all the guilt on his back. We talked about it. I shared my experience and advised him to take it to the cross. I feel committed to pray for John and his little girl Praise who is four years old and constantly asking about her mother.

The grieving process is very lonely. Multitudes will flock your house when calamity strikes but they soon leave and you are left alone to purge the pain of every single day without your loved one. When the last soil is thrown on the grave, life resumes its impetus, people walk away and forget.
Always check on friends and colleagues , who are grieving, even months and years after the loss. Don’t be afraid to ask, don’t think you are opening old wounds, it’s actually their best therapy, to talk and share their feelings and to know that someone cares.