The art of exiting a stage

It is a black-and-white picture. In my estimation, it was probably taken in the early 60s during the days of the defunct East African Commission.

This picture was taken at the then East African Literature Bureau, which later became Kenya Literature Bureau. 

There are four people in the picture. One is my father, holding a book while working on a book-binding machine. He is wearing a dust coat and a youthful business face.

The three people - a lady and two gentlemen - all standing, are Caucasians. They are looking intently at what my father is doing. The gentlemen are wearing suits and ties. The lady is in a formal black dress.

Fast forward to 2000. My father is three years into retirement. His hustle, a bookbinding business, is coming apart at the seams.

Not even the super glue and stitches he does on books can hold his hustle together. Frustration was fast setting in. But reality was the farthest thing from his old fogey mind.

Beckoning sunset

“Dad,” we walked on eggshells, “don't you think it's time you called it a day?”

“You children cannot tell me anything,” he put his feet down. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm doing the job I was trained to do, by Jorochere, so many years ago.”

Decades prior, my mom had already settled in our rural home. Dad did not want to embrace the beckoning sunset. However, if you are walking in wisdom, you ought to know that, in the Genesis creation account, a new day always starts at dusk.

Meaning? A sunset is not an awful prospect. A sunset should not make us balk; but it should draw us out to bask in heat and light, as we prepare for recreation and regeneration. A sunset should make us reflect on how our day went and, if need be, cause us to readjust the course of our lives. 

Exiting a stage does not mean a man retires from his life's calling and resigns to fate. It does not mean a man hangs up his tools of trade and waits for death. It means thinking futuristic and being fast out of the starting blocks.

This should entail, for instance - in anticipation of prospects - instead of sinking his meagre pension into bookbinding equipment, pops should have, years before retirement, invested in photocopiers.

Pass the baton

Exiting a stage means there will come a time when a man will be required to pass the baton. It does not mean one is a lousy runner - or a loser of man - whose services are no longer needed.

A calling is collaborative. This means that, however, gifted a man is, he cannot fulfil a cause alone. He needs other people's feet and fires. And, what's better, these folks are not stealing his thunder, but amplifying it by megatons.

There is no sadder sight than a champion who expires with a death grip on one end of the baton - which he has refused to pass - whereas, on the other end of the baton, are fresh feet raring to set new records and roaring fires dying to blaze new trails.

Exiting a stage means a man must renew his mind. Or else he will be turned into a dinosaur. Change, or lack thereof, starts upstairs. Several years later, after he had settled in the sticks, my father would constantly say: “I don’t know what I was thinking, staying in the city after retirement.”

Exiting a stage means stepping into unknown zones, and not only seeing things in black-and-white. It means allowing the process to transform the negatives in our minds into colourful realities. Realities that will set up successful stages for future generations to thrive.

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