The life of my papa Omio, brother to my late father, has me convinced in the belief that if it is not your day you will not die. My papa Omio “star nnyoo” as they would say in street talk here in Buganda.

As a youthful man he consumed significantly, to the extent that many believed his volume of consumption had surely damaged his liver beyond. Many wrote him off and predicted he would have an early grave.

Miraculously and with God’s mercy papa Omio continues to prove them wrong!

Then, he had a great big fall which necessitated him to be hospitalized for nearly a year or was it years in Mulago Hospital so that they could repair his broken hip. Some wrote him off again, thinking that even though he survives surgery, he will never be able to walk again. But they were wrong. With the help of crutches he walks.

Very recently, in August 2021 he was taken very ill and even though he had received his first does for omusujja omukabwe, he apparently got it. Pallisa Hospital could not handle and so in critical condition he was rushed to Soroti Hospital where he was hospitalized for two weeks or was it three weeks.

Again, some wrote him off. Well, papa Omio got well and he is so full of life again. Last weekend, when papa Omio heard I had come home and was beautifying his brother’s grave, the grave of my late papa, he insisted on spending the day with me hanging at his brother’s resting place.

We had a great day and shared breakfast, lunch and evening tea; after which my driver dropped him back to his home. He told me so many hilarious stories about him and his late brother; stories that I had never before known.

Stories like how at first they shared a compound with my late father – each with his household but within the same geography – as my late grandfather had allocated to them, his sons.

He even pointed out that the kabaka njagala trees at our home he was the one who planted them. And all along I thought that they were planted either by my late father or my late grandfather.

Anyway, papa Omio’s mother, one of my late grandmothers, wives to my late grandfather, insisted that he demand a separate piece of land from his father so that he too could locate his home separately.

Apparently, one of the reasons why she insisted so was that even though he would be the one hosting people for a meal or even an ajon party, his guests would say: “we are going to Owaraga’s home”, and that did not go down well with him nor with his mum.

Anyway, papa Omio was given another location and he is proud that his mother had the foresight to pressure him to insist on it. With pride he says: “now when I die, like Owaraga, I will also be burred at a place of my choosing in my own home.

I am happy for papa Omio, that he will not join the league of the Kasangos, but pray that his day does not come soon.