Victim’s fiancée finds solace in their son

 

 Lubi and Musinguzi. INSET: Lubi and her son. PHOTO BY DALTON WANYERA 

Vivian Lubi’s world came crushing down on July 11 2010, when her fiancé Jade Jimmy Musinguzi was killed during the terrorist attack at Kyadondo Rugby Club, leaving her with a seven-month pregnancy. However, their son, who is now nine-months and resembles his father, has relieved her a bit of the sorrow of losing Musinguzi. “At least he didn’t die completely,” she says. I, Dalton Wanyera reported her story:-

A joke about university students goes; “while reporting for their first year semester, they have a lot of books and very few items as property to their name. Yet as they pack to leave university, they will have accumulated property and nearly lost all the books.”

And another is; most graduates, if not all, many want to stay and find jobs in Kampala. Going back to their home towns/villages is of last resort.

The two conditions were true in Vivian Lubi’s case. Having graduated in January 2010, she secured a residence in Kiwatule, a Kampala suburb just to be close to her fiancé Jade Jimmy Musinguzi. They had met while she was at Maryland College in her senior four and by now it had become very hard to stay apart.

The five year old relationship, love and intimacy which had began in 2004 when Musinguzi, a ‘good Samaritan’ secured accommodation to three stranded sisters was to end by an act of a selfish extremist, a terrorist.

“We had met at a night club,” she recalls with a faint smile. “I and my sisters had escaped home to go dancing and when time to get home came, it was at dawn. We couldn’t go back otherwise we risked our parents catching us. Then from nowhere he showed up, he asked if we needed any help. My elder sister said we feared going home and we wanted to find a place to sleep.”

Adding, “He went back to the discotheque to consult his sister who granted the idea. That is how everything began.”

On 11, July all this was put to an end opening a new chapter in the 27 year old girl.

Planning against fate, the 25 year old lady had so far played her cards very well. Obtained her Honours degree in Drama, secured a job her next move was motherhood.

“Musinguzi’s sisters, brothers and mum well very happy on hearing I was expecting. They were so happy especially the mother, he was her first born. At one time she had told me she wants to be a grandmother. She encouraged us in our relationship,” she said.

On this memorable day, Lubi had sat at home waiting for her fiancé to bring home money she would use the next day at the Ntinda based Phiona clinic for her antenatal visits.

She says it was unusual for her to call and he takes that long to arrive. After calling him several times, she thought he was still busy but would definitely come home.

“To think that he could be watching soccer would have been giving false witness against him. He knew I didn’t like soccer so he came home and we watched together. Jade had grown, he no longer stayed out too long, and he was now a responsible man because in two months he was to become a father,” she remembers.

At 2 am, Angela, Musinguzi’s sister called Lubi asking whether Jade was home with her, when she answered in the negative, the phone went silent. He attempts to call back yielded nothing, Angela never received her calls.

At 3 am, his elder sister, Helen called Lubi. She broke the news of the bomb blast at Kyadondo, and her fiancé was there. There were higher chances he was a victim.

“I screamed so loudly. I was so shocked. He probably didn’t tell me he would watch soccer because he knew I wouldn’t let him. I had stopped him several times,” she said

Adding that, they immediately tuned into Al jazera. News strips ran below the TV screen reading over 60 feared dead in a bomb blast, Kampala, Uganda. They rushed out to Kyadondo but it was already late, police had cordoned off the place. They headed for Mulago as advised.

“We found there almost the whole family except his mother who lives in the UK. I searched everywhere in the wards. I lied to myself that he was fit and strong enough. He could not have died. He must have broken away.  In the theatre, the intensive care both at Mulago and at international hospital, I double checked, looking very closely at victims. He was not one of them,” in a softer voice, Lubi said with a screen of tears on her eyes.

“It was 3 PM and had eaten nothing. While at the eating place with Helen, Angela who had gone to Jinja road police called me asking where I was. I suggested I meet her where she was. Immediately they saw me, they broke down crying. I was heavy and lazy, I didn’t cry, just looked on seeing nothing but felt something carry me, and the world was rotating. Later she told me, police had given them a list of the dead, he was among them.

I felt bad, I felt hurt, God had failed me but I thought Jade had betrayed me. I mean he could not just go like that, I was seven months pregnant, I wondered what he expected me to do, what was I to tell his son when he grew up, how would I prepare for his future”  Amidst sobs, she said flumping at her laps with the palm several times.

After a long silence, she raised her head, looking at her teary eyes, I felt embarrassed for not giving an answer which, she probably has looked for all this time.

Back home, people had gathered to keep vigil. She says she still had not come to the reality, Jade is gone. Musinguzi had a week earlier given her his shirt as gift for remembrance and this bothers Lubi up to now, did he know he would die soon?

“This life,” she at one time went, “you are busy planning this and something totally different happens. In one month’s time we were planning to formally live together, as wife and husband. It is hard for me. His family has been there for me and my son, in anything I need, his mum talks to me very often telling me she is now my mother since mine died in 2008. I try to forget but it’s hard, I miss him. He loved and cared about me. He deeply understood who I am. My entire relatives treat me well but I need that special person Jade was.”

In Vivian Lubi, lives two spirits. The optimistic one has kept her going even when many times she breaks down in tears. Prayers have particularly motivated her to soldier on.

“All things happen for a reason. May be God has a bigger plane for me,” is all she can say in self consolation. Slowly she can now sleep unlike in the past when she watched television for long hours to just sleep off otherwise she felt him by her side.

But the greatest thing that has occurred to her is the looks her baby share with the father.

“At times I look at him and say, Jade didn’t die completely. He has resurrected in his son. The smile and his eyes are exactly that of Jade. He doesn’t resemble me at all,” she said.

The nine months old baby, according to her mother likes male figures but all she can afford is to fantasise about how the family would be. The baby carries the names, Jade Jimmy Musigunzi junior.