The picture was strange. I couldn’t make sense of it.
“Are you a geographer or surveyor?” I asked.
Why do you ask that?
“This looks like a satellite picture of some kind of mountain range”
He stared at the picture as if seeing it for the first time. There was a pregnant pause. Something had shifted in the air.
“ it’s an ultrasound image”.
I was so off, I felt embarrassed.
“ It’s an ultrasound image of my son, Myles”.
I should have made the connection because there were no other pictures with children. Just a framed picture of the couple.
“How old is Myles now?”
That silent pause returned and his look became forlorn.
“Let’s just say, Myles would have been six this year?’
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay. You would not have known”.
As a coach, I knew to hold my tongue. Don’t minimise the loss. Don’t offer a motivational word of encouragement. Don’t change the topic. Don’t fall back on platitudes about “God’s will” or “God’s plan.”
Just sit in discomfort with them. Don’t move. Stay still, we just sat there, on his dining table in the small apartment staring at the pictures on the mantle.
He was silent for a long time and I resisted all temptation to fill that silence with words of comfort.
Finally he spoke, his eyes a bit glassy and he was smacking his lips, suppressing the rising emotion.
“You’re the first who didn’t feel a need to say anything”
“It’s the least I could do”, I replied.
“I wish more people understood this”, he said, staring at the ceiling as he tried to regain his composure.
“Understood what?”
He shook his head slowly and we returned to silence. Tears emerged. He wiped them away, then looked up at me, allowing me to see them. I saw a deep shame and surrender written in that gaze. He looked away again, back towards the ceiling, searching for the words in his head. Then he let out a gush of breath.
“Just listening. It is easier to talk about now. It hasn’t for a long time”
He was a 32 year old man and he had buried three children. Somehow the first three were bearable because he had held them, seen them, named them. Myles died at four months old. The twins came two years after. They were named Myles,(the 2nd) and Michael. Myles died in the first month and Michael two months later. He thought he had gotten stronger but the unborn and unnamed one nearly broke him.
He had no name and he started growing out of the womb at five months. They called it an ectopic pregnancy. His partner’s life was in danger and she had to go into surgery. He was facing that horror again.
The pain. Indescribable. He felt helpless and powerless as he watched his partner go through this recurring experience of loss. He could do nothing to relieve the pain. This wasn’t a problem that could be fixed. It rendered him silent for a year. Not more than five people knew what he had gone through. Not even his own siblings. He must have aged a decade and put on a lot of weight during that year. He became one of the walking dead, fumbling under a melancholic burden. He was both a supporter and a griever.
The other children were buried in a muslim cemetery in Nairobi. He knew where they rested. He had a place to remind him that he was still a father. I once had kids too.
But this unborn one. Still difficult to talk about.
We had settled into his small dining table with four chairs serving as divider between the dining area and the compact living room, that had a flat screen TV on a side board and a single couch. Beside the TV was the picture that set off this conversation. From his voice, I could tell that he had suffered.
“6 years man, I have been trying to be a father for six years and nothing to show”
He chuckled at the thought and I chuckled alongside when he voiced the irony.
“I see jamaas playing around, with baby mamas. They have kids that they don’t want. Can’t even pay school fees. I don’t play those games”
“Even the Wahindis, the Indians, can trust me, an African man, with their children in water”.
“I haven’t told you my story?”. I leaned in.
They were not officially married. It was a ‘come-we-stay’ arrangement that grew complicated. A christian man and his muslim girlfriend. None of them had told family that they were cohabiting and serious. When Aleena got pregnant it was a big scandal. Their secret had unraveled in the most shameful way. Barely a month after conception, tragedy struck.
The partner’s family scorned him, called him a loser and tried to scuttle the daughter to a foreign country, away from his corrupting influence. She came from the prominent side with means. He had known hardship after his parents death. His own family suffered and the siblings scattered in different directions nursing their buried hurts. The death of twins was an extremely low and humiliating moment. He was utterly helpless. He couldn’t do much to help his grieving wife and was at a loss when the second twin succumbed to a chest infection and died. That’s why he let Aleena’s family bury his children, the muslim way, in a communal cemetery.
He was even willing to convert, for some dignity. His partner had never insisted. She had also wanted to convert to christianity but it wasn’t a deal breaker for him. He didn’t share much of this journey with his own larger family. They wouldn’t understand. They would probably judge. He was going to find a way to take care of his partner. Then tragedy struck and he found himself at the mercy of the wife’s family. They were paying the hospital bill.
He was just an unimportant plus one. Part of the problem.
Three times, it happened and he was still at their mercy. Not respected but tolerated because their daughter refused to give up on him.
He recalled the years previous. They had prayed hard. Full of optimism. God of mercy, we have remained humble. This was it, the third time was a charm. We would finally break the curse,
“We too could be parents.” Then it happened again.
It crushed him completely. He became an android. It was work as a swimming coach that saved him. It gave him routine and a healthy escape. There was some fulfillment in teaching privileged kids how to swim, teaching them to get over their fear of water and become champion swimmers.
“Maybe it was also the children” I suggested
He turned his head,
“Yeah,I have never thought about it that way. I love those kids”.
“Do you stop being a parent when your children die?”
He didn’t answer and instead started talking about his stages.
Crying. Blaming. Conspiracy. Anger. Lost Helplessness. Surrender. Now he was talking. It was a good sign.
“We talked about it with Aleena. Talking helps us heal in some way because who is there to blame but yourself.You have to accept it. That feeling of constant despair. As much as it is painful, we accept. There is nothing like getting used to it. It is easiest to stay there. But the best way is to walk through it. Think of it like walking through a dark tunnel. You just have to keep walking until you see the light. I am at that stage where I see it, still far but at least I know I am walking in the right direction”.
“Wueh, you have passed through a lot”
He just nodded and continued
“Imagine, you want to share or at least confide in someone else, but they can’t really feel it. They may feel sorry, but they can’t relate. In fact they become very uncomfortable. Most people ran quickly from these topics. You get a quick “ pole sana”. We are here to support you. They ask for the Mpesa account for their contribution and tell you to be strong, God is in control. Then they are gone. Quiet”.
He had a lot to get off his chest.
“You know people talk. Your woman is always pregnant but we never see any children. Maybe the man was the problem. There is a question mark after your name.The family insinuates. We are tired of our daughter shedding blood. Imagine that. Even cheap drug addicts, who sleep in tunnels, can have children. What is wrong with me?”
I asked him what he did about it?
“So what do you do? You just have to be strong for her. You cannot burden her with your own sorrow. That’s what men do, right? Don’t talk, don’t break. But inside, my friend, shame, guilt”.
“I didn’t even want to be in a new relationship, I could not imagine going through what I went through with another person”.
I wondered how many unseen fathers were struggling to find anyone who could validate their specific loss. Losing a pregnancy, or a miscarriage, is a common and difficult experience. While the physical toll is on the carrying parent, the emotional and psychological impact is also profoundly significant for men.
We emerge from broken societies and shattered in many parts. Grief was a collective experience that was recognised as a complex and non-linear journey supported by the extended family and the wider community. No one was left to navigate alone. Where there were once sacred rituals and ceremonies, now there exist only superficial condolences and pomp. Once upon a time, a baby was conceived and instantly became a living being that we could count them among our dead and integrate them into the ancestral lineage facilitating their spiritual transition. That spiritual connection to the unborn child from conception was lost. Now we just talk in whispers about discarded foetuses with no names.
This is just an illustration of the experiences of men after a pregnancy loss. They are unseen in healthcare and societal narratives. There are many resources for women’s physical and mental health after a miscarriage, but fewer for men. This can make men feel unrecognised and alone in their grief. There is a serious gap to address in care to truly support family and community structures. In this case, healthcare policy has to change and start including fathers more in the care provided for pregnancy loss and perinatal bereavement.
“Have you ever considered adoption, IVF?”
He rubbed his fingers together. It costs money.
“There has to be a lesson in it?” I prodded further
“Yes, as we count the years, talk about them more, imagine what scenarios would have been. Keep them in our memory. We talk about them with a smile on our faces.”
“These tragedies have brought us closer. Only the two of us can truly understand. There’s no one else. The strength between us pushes us forward. I feel very safe expressing my vulnerability with my wife.”.
It was the first time he called Aleena, his wife during the entire conversation.
“We haven’t given up”.
P.S. This reflection on grief and unseen fathers is drawn from my reflections on the ones we lost and meditations on grief, and healing. It forms part of a series of insights drawn from my upcoming book, Strength and Sorrow, where I delve deeper into these universal experiences and the pathways to finding healing amidst loss.
