Kham’s murder and my fragile heart

Jul 08, 2010

IT has been a week since the news broke, ‘Bugolobi Boy killed’. I read it on the second page of The New Vision, and it was like someone had punched the air out of my lungs.

IT has been a week since the news broke, ‘Bugolobi Boy killed’. I read it on the second page of The New Vision, and it was like someone had punched the air out of my lungs.

Like the whole nation, I had been praying and hoping that baby Kham would be found and returned to his parents’ arms, and to the comfort of their love.

It never happened! And like Yolanda Adams sang, Now, we are standing here with a fragile heart.

And yes, the whole day on the dark Monday that the news broke, I was a package of nerves and tears.

On many occasions that day, I was assaulted by the onslaught of undefinable grief, and found myself bawling in the ‘Ladies’ at my workplace.

Yes, indeed at one point I felt like those women who go to funerals and cry louder than the bereaved. But the bereavement was undeniable.

The true bereaved persons are you, Sven and Naome. Since that Monday, not a day has gone by that my thoughts have not wandered to you.

I know that I speak for many, including all those that joined you in bidding farewell to your beautiful baby, and the many who are closely following up this tragedy through the media and from people who know you.

Not for one moment can we (the observers) say we know what your shoes feel like at this moment, nor are there words that can be offered to try and make it a little better; we are so aware that your pain runs deep.

All I can say is that in taking Kham, they could have taken any of our own; in killing him, they killed a little part of us too. So, we are unable to detach ourselves from your bereavement.

June is the month in which Ugandans celebrate heroes (specifically war heroes), and martyrs.

June shall also be the month which we all got to love a little boy called Kham.
In retrospect, Kham is a little bit of both, a hero and a martyr.

Like his mother said, because he has been taken, many little children shall be saved.

However, it cannot be denied that the way Kham Kakama Kirenzi Karekaho has gone, has left a whole nation with a fragile heart.

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