• On International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, Grace Ogoye, shares the story of her sister Julie Ogoye, who survived the attack but lives with the scars to date.
Image: courtesy
When news streamed in that there had been a terrorist attack in Nairobi, my first thought was: we were now comparable to Beirut.
Then panic set in. Literally all my family members — siblings, uncles, aunties, and cousins live in this city.
The second bit of information narrowed down the probable victim in my family to my elder sister, Julie Ogoye, 58.
Julie worked with the Teachers Services Commission whose offices were housed in the bell-bottom Cooperative Bank building at the time.
Mobile phones were a preserve of the well-heeled, so it meant calling the landlines at intervals, a painstakingly slow process.
By evening, she hadn't yet been located. We didn't know if she was dead or alive. The feeling of the unknown is a torment of the heart and soul.
In Nairobi, a sea of humanity was in motion. People were moving from one hospital to another reading through the list of patients brought in. They allowed search parties to go to the wards to try to identify those who were unable to communicate.
We did our rounds. There was that foreboding thought that if we didn't locate her by that evening, the search would now include the morgues.
It was a truth l didn't want to face, and l think no one ever is willing to come to those terms.
It was at Kenyatta, that a cousin passed by a bed of patients. He had been down that row before and he was only confirming.
A patient motioned him that the patient adjacent to him was motioning him to catch his eye.
He met a patient, whose clothes were soaked in blood, head bandaged save for a tiny winy bit of the right eye.
The face was swollen and the patient was unable to move the jaw due to pain and injury. Shrapnel of glass was visible on the skin on the forearm. It was Julie Ogoye, my sister.
He broke down next to her bed and wept. He was relieved that she was alive but afraid that she was hanging by the thread.
Over the next few weeks, she was operated on both here and abroad. She lost her left eye and to date has scars. Other health complications arose due to exposure to chemicals.
Loud noises jolt her heart and cold weather makes her bones ache. She can't do laundry as some of her fingers are to date stiff and are abnormally swollen.
Today, along with those who carry scars of loved ones gone too soon or scarred forever, may l offer a prayer. The body may never heal, but may the Good Lord heal our hearts and minds. May the perpetrators of such acts be given a human heart, rather than a heart of stone.
It is beyond saddening to know areas where conflicts exist; South Sudan, the Congo, northern Uganda, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, northern Nigeria; this is the people's daily dose of life. We only got a glimpse of it. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
To the survivors, soldier on. You were given a second lease in life. May you find fulfilment, may your years after that event be filled with love.
Grace Ogoye, sister of Julie Ogoye, a victim of the 1998 Nairobi bombing.