TITLE: Best Before ‘09
AUTHOR: Sharon Gwada
PUBLISHER: Self
REVIEWER: Scholastica Moraa
AVAILIBITY: Nuria Bookstore
‘There are two endings in life…; the ending you want and the ending you get’
Grief is that thing people tell you to handle. That time will heal all wounds. Grief is that thing we all experience at some point and for some people it is just easier to not talk about it. Hoping that with time you will feel numb enough not to feel how painfully heart wrenching the pain was. Still is.
Sharon Gwada starts her story lightly. She is just a normal girl from a normal family. A happy family. Worrying about friends, homework, her siblings, stealing mangoes and trying to stay out of getting a lashing from her parents. You can feel how laughter dances in her walls. The dreams they have. The joy. The hopes. And then tragedy strikes.
The family learns about hospitals, kidney failures, complicated names for drugs, and mobilising family and friends to contribute to help medical bills. Through it all, you cannot help but keep your fingers crossed. Hoping against all hope that they get the ending they want. The ending you hope for them. When they get these unhappy endings, your heart breaks too.
Fiction gives readers a reprieve. You can console yourself that the story is just something an insane writer came up with. Not with Best before ’09. There is no such comfort. Someone once said that death feels painful when it is someone you know or love. When a stranger is carried away in a coffin, you feel nothing. You are just glad it is not someone you know. But through this book, we know the brothers. As we heave our way through the book, we are sad that they did not make it.
Research shows that one in three of all adults suffer from chronic conditions. This book is just a drop in the ocean of what families are going through. The love, the pain and the dedication of mothers and caregivers is felt in this book. You also cannot help but marvel at the strength it took the author to pen this story.
For readers looking for amazing Kenyan stories, this comes highly recommended. It is emotional but unputdownable. For criers, plenty of tissues will be recommended too. May those who left before us rest in peace. And may those who loved them breathe easier.
Moraa is a young woman navigating life. Author of Beautiful Mess… Co Author of Dreams and Demons and I’m Listening 2021 edition. She is also the winner of Kendeka Prize of African Literature-2022. She can be found with a book or two. When she’s not fighting to stay afloat, she is daydreaming, writing poetry or reading.