A letter to my son

Dear Alan La Guma,

At 10pm on the night of Saturday, March 25, 2006, I received a text message from your father Denis Tukwatsibwe saying, "This morning@11, God blessed us with a bouncing baby boy..."

Alan la Guma has grown so fast, and is certainly driving his life well 

I immediately called him and was amazed by how his voice had lost the rough edge of manliness and become mellow with love and the new experience of fatherhood. He even had no idea what name to call you. So I suggested "Denis La Guma", wanting his first name to live on through you, and as well celebrate South African anti-apartheid novelist Alex La Guma whose works I love for vividness and unrivalled empathy. Your parents loved the name and asked me to be your godparent.

It was an honour that got my mind whirling back to our formative years when your father and I were inseparable friends who shared not just a name but were up to all sorts of mischief including pulling foolish moves on pretty little girls. It was easy because we come from the same place and studied together from Primary Four to Senior Four until life swayed us on different paths but we knew we would never let go of those memories of innocence and golden friendship upcountry where my love forever has its roots.

Anyway, I was at campus when my friend turned on his charm and stole the heart of a beautiful young woman he had met in college. He walked her down the aisle on a memorable day crowned with a night of passion in which you were conceived.

The priest that baptized you rejected the name "Denis" saying a parent can only share a surname with his child. So your father came up with "Alan", originally a saint's name, meaning harmony and noble.

In our language "Guma" denotes strength and courage, and the fact that La Guma the author was called "a warrior of linguistic arrowheads", because he fought courageously with a pen, means you have a powerful name.

I tell you all this, son, because you have attained an age at which a boy begins to become a man. And as your godfather, I believe there is no better 7th birthday gift than to know the basis and significance of your name. There is so much in a name, and you Alan La Guma, you are a fine, brave and intelligent young man that the world will be in awe of one day.

Happy birthday tomorrow!

--This was first published in Sunday Monitor, a day before Alan's 7th birthday