A BAND OF HOSPITAL BROTHERS

Sharuko On Saturday

TWENTY years ago, I wrote my own obituary, from my hospital bed because I was so sure that I was about to die.

I told my sister about the obituary and asked her to convince my bosses at work to publish it, in this space of this iconic newspaper, on the first Saturday after my burial.

I remember seeing tears flooding my sister’s eyes, the pain was clearly evident and she just could not embrace the possibility that this was probably it – the eternal split with her kid brother.

Even in my sick state, I could understand her powerful emotions, separated by just two years, we had grown up together, played together, fought each other countless times, with each fight somehow strengthening the bond that united us.

Her name is Dorcas and in our community at Chakari, when we were kids, she had a bigger name than mine and just about everyone called mum “Amai Dorcas.”

And, to them, I didn’t even have a name and I was simply called “Mwana waMai Dorcas.”

For 24 years, since I was born, we had walked together as brother and sister, we had shed tears together when we said goodbye to both our parents, within three years of each other, and when we lost our other siblings.

But, now, here I was on this hospital bed.

And, after a week of my detention there, she was right to join me in starting to fear for the worst, the possibility that my date with the messenger of death had come.

I was so sick, and so weak, but I really wanted to be the first chap who would write his own obituary and not even this illness, which had consigned me to my hospital bed, was going to stop me.

It wasn’t an easy assignment and, given my poor state of mind and body, it was a piece pregnant with many mistakes as I wrote about my life, my career, my wife, my kids, my friends, you name it.

I wrote about how my taste buds evolved from a beautiful romance with the taste of Chibuku to the bitter but refreshing taste of single malt whisky, which is made in the Scottish Highlands, and consumed worldwide.

I also wrote about my Chakari United, my Manchester United and fittingly the last chapter was about my Warriors whom, at the beginning of the year, I had covered their maiden appearance at the AFCON finals.

And, as fate would have it, the football gods appeared to have come up with this fascinating script that the last Warriors match I should watch was against the Super Eagles of Nigeria.

Now, this wasn’t the Mickey Mouse collection of Super Eagles that we have today who can’t even beat Lesotho at home and lose to Benin in a World Cup qualifier.

This was the real Super Eagles.

It was led by Jay Jay Okocha, the ultimate master of fantasy football, an athlete so gifted his legacy would have been written in gold letters if he had been an Englishman or of European or South American descent.

So, on September 5, 2004, I ordered my wife to bring our home television to my hospital ward so that, in the company of my sick compatriots, I could watch the Warriors take on the Super Eagles in a World Cup/AFCON qualifier.

There were nine of us who watched the match when it started and there were about 15 of us who were still watching by the time the referee blew the final whistle to end our misery.

The game had been as good as over just five minutes after the break when Yakubu converted a penalty to give Nigeria a 3-0 lead.

It was a testament of our loyalty to the brand of our Warriors and our misguided belief, powered by nothing else but the hormones of patriotism, which kept us, somehow, believing the result could still be turned around.

 GOD WAS WITH US AND WE FOUGHT BACK

We realised that even the 45 000 fans who had converged at the giant stadium had also not abandoned their folks despite the miserable result of what was largely a mismatch of a World Cup qualifier.

It’s the game that also briefly cost Charles Mabika, a legend of our time, his job at ZBC because of concerns that, in our hour of embarrassment, he had provided the beautiful soundtrack to Okocha’s humiliation of our boys.

Thank God, the man we call CNN wasn’t away for a long time and it’s a credit to his staying power that 20 years down the line he is still in those trenches doing what he loves the most.

For me, the real achievement for our band of sick brothers was that we managed to complete the entire 90 minutes watching this show despite our heavily weakened physical conditions.

A few days later I was discharged from hospital, against all the odds, in a development which my sister has always termed the first and only miracle she has had the privilege to witness.

Understandably, it had a huge impact on her and she transformed herself into this very religious person whose every step in life, for the past 20 years, has been shaped by her spiritual connection with God.

Two of our band of brothers didn’t make it out of that hospital ward, I was later told, and I have always told myself that it could have been any of us, including me, and you would by now have read the obituary that I wrote for myself.

Shortly after I was discharged from hospital, we changed houses and I lost contact with that piece that I had written for myself for a very long time until I came across it on Christmas Eve in 2016.

This week, I received the horrible news that a third member of our hospital band of brothers, had passed away, at the age of 87.

He was the oldest among our crew, by a considerable country mile, and it was a testament of his battling qualities that he made it out of that hospital and lived this long.

After hearing about his death, which in my mind is a well-deserved rest after a wonderful innings which almost took him into the Nervous Nineties, I read the piece I wrote about my obituary again.

And, as I went through it again, mistakes and all, regrets and all, the battles I fought and won, those I fought and lost, my old man and my old woman, all the sacrifices they made for me, I was fighting tears from rolling down my cheeks.

I realised that the majority of the Warriors, led by their inspirational captain Peter Ndlovu, who fought and lost that battle against the Super Eagles, are still alive and well.

We have lost only two of the boys who featured in that match and they both died in Johannesburg – Edzai Kasinauyo, the only one among them who dared challenge the administrators who have been messing up our game and Charles Yohane, the good guy they murdered.

I realised how much we have fallen down the pecking order that while in 2004, a loss to Nigeria would hurt so much that Mabika could briefly be suspended from his job for praising Okocha, a defeat to Lesotho doesn’t provoke similar reactions.

It’s as if we now expect to lose to the likes of Lesotho and those in charge of this mess are actually given a pat on the back by the FIFA guys tasked with helping our football get back to its feet.

I’m not sure how my hospital band of brothers are reacting to all this but what I know is that, in their eyes that day on September 5, 2004, in that ward, I saw what the Warriors really mean to our people.

Yes, our Warriors have largely been an underperforming side which has largely punched below its weight and just five appearances at the AFCON finals, in 44 years, is a very poor return for a country with all this football talent.

But, that will never take away the special attachment which it has with its fans and the sights, and sounds, from the COSAFA Cup illustrate that story because it was as if the Warriors were the only team with fans out there.

They say real love is seen when things are down and, in the eyes of each of my hospital band of brothers that day on September 5, 2004, I saw the true face of romance that exists between supporters and their team.

Despite that humbling defeat, and their compromised physical conditions, I could see that their love affair with their team was alive and well and no single result would ever wipe that away.

Twenty years later, I have always wondered whether our spirit, not to let a major setback destroy us, as demonstrated by our love affair with the Warriors even in their hour of humiliation, was a key factor in helping us conquer our illnesses and live to fight another day.

It’s hard to get the true answer because life, by its very nature, is not something that you say one plus one equals to two.

It’s a grand mystery and a very complicated affair and God gave us another chance and the majority of us, just like those Warriors who faced Nigeria that day, are still alive.

We lived to see a great CAPS United lose just one match, a seven-goal thriller at home to Highlanders, in a trailblazing 2004 season in which Charles Mhlauri transformed them into immortals.

It’s 20years now, since that incredible Makepekepe season, in which Mhlauri and his men touched the heavens.

Somehow, that same year, Arsenal went one game better and completed the season unbeaten after winning 28 and drawing 12 of their 40 league games.

The two vintage stories are as old as our story.

A story of a band of hospital brothers who cheated death, with the help of God, and lived to fight another day, watch the only World Cup to be played in Africa, witnessed Dynamos being acquired by one man and saw our Warriors being suspended from world football.

Of course, the obituary lost its relevance – at least for now.

To God Be The Glory!

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle. Come on Chegutu Pirates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zaireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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You can also interact with me on the ZTV football programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika on Wednesdays