ONCE again the cruel hand of death has struck the nation where it hurts the most.
Once again, the nation has been plunged into mourning.
Once again the soil has opened up to swallow one of our own.
Where the grenades twice failed to take her life, death forever lurking and serenading our consciences with its fateful smile has come to claim the life of Amai Maria Msika, widow to the late Vice-President Joseph Msika.
Last month we were there at the National Heroes’ Acre laying to rest the duo of Cde George Rutanhire and another late Vice-President Dr Simon Muzenda’s widow Amai Maud Muzenda.
As all these deaths of our heroes and heroines continue to haunt us, something disturbing is emerging from their untimely departures from mother earth.
Their narratives, the agonies and their suffering under the colonial repressive laws only emerge when they are gone.
It was the case with the late great Cde Rutanhire whom many only got to know that he lived with a bullet stuck in his hip.
Those in the know knew how much that cursed bullet tormented him and caused him so much suffering.
I was one of those who knew about that excruciating pain he went through as a result of that bullet.
I saw him often and each time we met, it was always about the bullet – that bullet.
There was a story to that effect, but I am one of the many who will admit with a heavy and tormented heart that I did not sit down to record that narrative.
It would have helped shape the story of the liberation struggle that we should have written many years ago.
I have said it before and I will say it again – each time we go to the National Heroes Acre to bury those heroes and heroines who are now departing at a frightening rate, we would not be burying mere mortals.
We will be burying a story.
We will be burying history, our history.
We will be burying our narrative.
I fear that soon, we will be left with no story of our own but that of the Rhodesians.
Soon we might be left holding on to the fading memories of our past.
A past we may never lay claim to.
We have never been part of that past.
We can never be part of a past we have ignored all this while.
I was astounded to learn that Amai Maria Msika had a shrapnel in one of her legs that she refused to have removed since it reminded her of her past.
That past is the one whose scars were visible as she lived all her life with remnants of Rhodesian brutality firmly struck in her body.
Amai Maria Msika is gone, with only a few of us having recorded her story.
We only got know about her through testimonies from relatives who revealed that ‘shrapnel issue’.
How much more did we lose out from her story?
How much more have we missed from those who have departed without telling their story?
How much more are we losing out by not sitting down with those who are still with us?
Let us take stock and remember that this is not our story, but that of our children.
Let us think of the legacy that we want to leave for our future generations.
It is up to us to deal with that issue before its too late.