Chasing Light, Not Wind: A Journey of Lifelong Healing

 

Some nights, the sky feels utterly starless, doesn't it? A heavy blanket of darkness where you lose the felt memory of the warmth of the sun or the gentle light of the moon. I have been walking through one of those starless nights lately, a season when my own heart is learning the clumsy dance of holding grief while composting old wounds that have scarred over and healed. It was in this quiet darkness that a gift arrived, not with a loud announcement, but like a steady, gentle flame. That gift is Faith Njahĩra Wangarĩ’s newly published ebook, Love, Grief and Healing: Your companion through loss and discovery.  It is a bright torch, and its light is guiding the way home to myself.

I am honoured and touched to know Faith, my fellow feminist sibling, and so it is a profound experience to receive the gift of her words and reflections. Her book is a generous, raw, honest, and profoundly moving account of her healing journey, which validates the path I am on to be more present with myself and others. Faith's words have been a balm, especially lately, as I find myself sitting with one of the heaviest pieces of my heart: the last exchange I had with my mother before she transitioned, over twenty-five years ago.

The memory is as clear as yesterday. We were in Ward 7 at Kenyatta Hospital. It had been a difficult day for her. All day, she had asked the nurses for help to get cleaned up, but they were too overwhelmed and stretched too thin to assist. In a busy public ward, patients without visitors often struggle for this kind of care. Mum had wished not to be bathed by her daughter, hoping to hold on to a measure of dignity. But the swamped staff couldn't meet her request with the empathy it deserved. I saw the struggle in my mum's eyes, the tears she fought to keep in as she let go of her inhibitions, resigning herself to my care. I, her youngest, gave her a sponge bath, my hands moving with a tenderness that couldn't mask the ache in my chest.

I saved her hair for last. Combing out, oiling her scalp, and plaiting her hair into pointy matutas felt like a sacred, timeless ritual. We were both silent. I was in the grip of an undeniable dread, a soul wound I carried for my whole life—the moment of losing her. Her pregnancy with me was an accident, one she discovered as she became ill. Choosing to have me despite this came at a cost to her health. In many ways, I carried that weight and the nagging feeling of her impending loss followed me for the 21 years, shy of three weeks, that the universe gave my mum to me until it took her away. After a long silence, she whispered what I didn't realise would be her last words to me. "Chiqy, I am praying to recover because I am not ready to die." Her words cut through me. It was the first time she had ever spoken of the death that loomed so close. I feebly told her to hush, that she would, of course, recover. Then she added, "I still have so much work to do to raise all of you."

My heart broke. Even then, in the face of her own mortality, her life was dedicated to serving others. Her words have both haunted and anchored me ever since, a constant reminder of a love so profound it looked past its own pain or end. And it is this complex inheritance of love, service, and loss that I am determined to come to terms with.

That evening, Mum's attending doctor requested that we purchase a dialysis catheter kit for a critical procedure. Back then, it cost 10,000 shillings—my entire salary at the time. My eldest brother, Jimmy, found the money and bought it, only for us to be told the next day that the 'procedure failed' and we needed to purchase another. My uncle, who was also my boss, gave me my pay, but between my dad and my brother, they managed to raise the resources to get the second kit. The money in my pocket, which was everything I had, felt so inadequate because I could not repurchase my mum’s health or turn back time. As I waited for visiting time, I went to Uchumi Ngong Road Hypermarket and bought my mum new towels, face towels, and some toiletries - simple supplies I hoped would bring her a sliver of comfort. Sadly, by then she was in a coma and too frail for treatment. She breathed her last the day after. For the longest time after she was gone, as we packed up her things, I remember wondering what to do with those new towels, flannels, and toiletries. I did not share this thoughts with anyone, and so the towel and supplies made their way into our home, our wardrobes and into daily use—but in my heart, the sight of them haunted me until they wore out from wear and tear and downgraded into dusters to mop the floor. Even as they worked themselves out of my daily life, the thought of the towels still stayed with me, gripping my heart.

 That is why reading Faith's words feels like being gently taken by the hand and told, "You are not alone in this." Her book is a powerful invitation to look at the patterns we carry, the inherited wounds that shape our steps, and to choose a different way forward. It’s a call for radical self-acceptance, for laying down the weapons we've turned against ourselves and instead, building a sanctuary of softness and care within. Faith does this through the powerful practice of accompaniment. 

As Jacqueline Novogratz once wrote, and as Faith so beautifully embodies, “This is the secret of accompaniment, I will hold a mirror to you and show you your value, bear witness to your suffering and to your light and overtime, you will do the same for me...” In her book, Faith becomes that mirror, reflecting our own value, our suffering, and our light back to us.

She is a gentle guide on this journey. In her introduction, she shares that the book contains her journal entries from a 10-day grief writing workshop, and she encourages readers to trust their own process. "You can also stop reading at any point and never start back at all either," she writes with profound compassion. "Trust that you know how best to experience the book and bear witness to the parts of you that are reflected back at you in this book." This permission to just be with the book is a testament to the care woven into every page.

Faith walks with us not as a distant expert, but as a fellow traveller. She shares the raw reality of her own path—of therapy, of meditation, of being held in the love of her community. Her vulnerability is a gift, and her story is a testament to the power of showing up for oneself with love. To her own family, she writes with a courageous honesty: "There is a lot in this book that you will know about for the first time about me... This is my path and it is a divinely ordered one." It’s an invitation to all who read her story: to see her journey as her own, and to be inspired to bravely walk our own.

And what lies at the end of this path of self-discovery? What happens when we dare to heal? Faith shows us that what lies on the other side is the courage to dream again. In her own powerful words, she shares, “I do find myself endlessly dreaming of more freedom, peace, love and beauty even when loss threatens to dim that faith. Daring to dream, continuing to dream of a world where my people are loved and free. Dreaming of building up our communities to enjoy this love and freedom in its fullness.”

Her words resonate with a deep truth I am learning to live into: grieving and healing are not destinations, but a constant, life-long journey of sense-making. This path requires us to be more connected, more anchored, and more alive to what we are and what we have in this very moment, because, as my mother’s last words taught me, everything can change in the blink of an eye. 

This understanding frees us. We realise that we cannot expend our precious energy chasing the wind, grasping at what is gone, or being bound by the manacles of fears of the unknown and the constant dread of loss.

Instead, we can learn to be like trees. We can grow roots deep into the earth of our own being, anchored in our connections and our love. And when the gusts of wind come—as they always will—we can dance and sway without being unrooted until it is our time to fall. Faith’s work is a profound contribution to this practice of resilient living. Love, Grief and Healing is more than a book; it's a companion for this life-long dance. It is a torch that doesn’t just light the end of the path, but illuminates the sacred ground beneath our feet, helping us stay present to our own beautiful, resilient hearts as we sway.