Them.

It is a fact of life. It is not a theory. It was always thus even before it became thus. It had always been and, God help me, it always will or God and I are going to have a heart-to-heart and he ain't going to be happy. At one time it was Ginice Investments - which took George twenty years to work out its meaning, Gideon and Eunice. Ginice Investments, unlike its inspiration, went down in flames a decade ago. Which is funny because Gideon and Eunice are like the proverbial rock on which to build one's castle.

They are Mwalimu to their students. And they are very good at what they do. She has two what she does, though she enjoys the posher one more eve though the siasa at both places is the same. I sometimes get the urge to call them Mwalimu but it is an urge I have successfully suppressed because that is not what they are to me. They are more. Much more.

I feared her more than I feared him. I can still picture her frown when she is displeased. It communicates very easily. It sends a shudder down my spine and it arouses that red flush of shame up my neck and onto my cheeks of knowing that I have displeased her. She taught me how to read. No, not my ABCs. She taught me how to read, for pleasure, for comprehension, for edification. She taught me how to see the big picture in the thousands of words walled between the two hard covers of a beginning and an end. 

She taught me to read even when there was nothing to read - she made me love the poetry in Bob Marley's discography, the passion in Tina Turner's, the emotion in Elvis Presley's. She remains the one to whom every crackpot idea is taken for a thumbs-up/thumbs-down decision because she can read your conviction in the idea even before your lips part and stupidity gushes forth.

How he allowed me a free hand with his hammer for so long remains a mystery. He is a man of precise definitions. Astute. Erudite. Carefree. Easy. Charming. Cool. Firm-but-fair. He last tested the elasticity of my gluteus maximus when I was twelve. That last one smarted like hell. He probably didn't consciously decide that it was the last one, but once the first one landed he must have made up his mind to ensure that it was always going to be memorable. And it is. I still get hives when I recall that last one.

He taught me how to count, though it is she who taught me what to do with cubic equations other than throw up my hands or throw up. He taught me to measure things - time, distance, money. He oversaw my over-enthusiastic wielding of his hammer. The aforementioned Bob Marley and Elvis Presley discographies are his - as is the gramophone on which the crackle of needle-on-vinyl is a welcome, soothing salve to an onerous, horrendous day, any day. He taught me to sing; he tried to teach me how to sing. I resisted and I have regretted it ever since because his is a mellifluous and beautiful alto - though sometimes he scares the bejesus out of me when he captures Elvis' timbre so perfectly.

Like I said, it has always been the two of them. It was meant to be. I mean, look at them! If you don't see it, take a second look. Now they are grandparents and as usual they are still teaching me new things. Even now! I can see what they both worry about, for me, like they always have and, like always, all I want is to make sure that they smile the way they did when they met their grandchild for the first time or how they smiled when they saw our papers which they declared, with that tone of finality they usually have on portentous moments, "Perfect!" Look!