The nights are hot here. Cold enough that I can't sleep nude, but warm enough that wearing anything feels uncomfortable.

It's a terrible dilemma. Not because guests wander in and out of this house at will. We're at a funeral you see. The real dilemma is that I can't enjoy my sleep either way.

Then again, funerals are not for sleep.

I don't know about other cultures but Luos (or is it SDAs) have a tradition where on the night before the burial we stay awake until morning: dancing, singing, confessing, and gathering around the body. “Keeping it warm" I think is the literal translation.

It's a tradition as old as the railways in Kenya. Older even.

Last night we did exactly that.

Tonight I need to sleep.

But I can't. My nude-nights policy cannot survive here. I'm sharing a room with my boys. Each of them understands the predicament, and they're now lounging around in checked cotton boxers, shirtless and unbothered. We don't do Calvin Klein and the like. We believe the goods deserve room to breathe. Aeration is important, gentlemen.

It's pure testosterone around here. We're here to support a friend who just lost his mother to that old, relentless malady called cancer. It has claimed another life, but one day we'll conquer this stubborn disease. I believe that.

Grief is a strange and terrible thing. It makes words lose their meaning. When everyone tells you "sorry for your loss" every five minutes you begin to wonder whether those words ever mean anything at all. Sometimes grief feels so immense that writing about someone else's grief seems wrong. As though I'm trying to understand what they're are going through when even they may not understand it themselves.

It's a difficult thing, seeing the one force that reduces every human being, no matter how powerful or insignificant, to flesh, tears, and silence.

Death.

And the grief it leaves behind.

Because we are boys, we don't always have the right words. The best we can do is stay ready, rushing wherever we're needed, standing beside our brother, offering a shoulder when the tears come. Because it is okay to cry. It is okay to mourn with your brethren. Even in our boxers, we mean business when it comes to showing up for one another. Ready in and out of season. It's the Adwen in us.

Spending my nights in boxers also means my laptop is somewhere in Nairobi wondering where I disappeared to. I'm writing this from Siaya on my phone. It's tough to write on a phone, tougher in boxers, and tougher still on a hot night.

So I'll stop here.

Enjoy Father's Day.

Maybe buy your father a pair of checked boxers today. Or some well-tailored trousers. Or, if you're like me, place fresh flowers on his grave. Tell him you're doing fine, or not. That you've grown chest hair now too, and that you exude too much testosterone that makes some others uncomfortable. Tell him we're still trying to beat cancer, and that one day we will. In this life, because we do not wish for cancer in the next life.

Reagan..✍🏽