One Year Later: Remembering the Late Karundi Mathenge
One year ago yesterday, 4/3/2015 Karundi Mathenge was called by his maker at about 3-5 a.m. The exact time of his passing is beyond our knowledge because when the paramedics arrived at 6 a.m. after being summoned to attend to him, they declared that he had already gone after trying desperately to revive him.
His family is sending this message to those he loved to celebrate with us the first anniversary of his untimely death.
As we remember him, we want to thank most sincerely those who stood by and believed in Mathenge while he was alive and those who supported and comforted us during that most trying period when he passed.
Special appreciation goes to his friends in the diaspora in Tanzania and in Sweden which was like Mathenge’s second home, and to his Kenyan friends who were very dear to him.
We thank his friends in Sweden led by the Ngatias (Ngatia and Nyambura) for their support. Mr and Mrs Ngatia, please pass our appreciation to Mathenge’s friends there. May God bless you all abundantly.
We thank his Kenyan friends led by John Gachie and Willy and other friends who were close to Mathenge.
John, thank you for welcoming Mathenge to your home when he landed in Kenya in May 2005. Thank you for being there for him through thick and thin and holding him by the hand [quite literally] even when his own relatives were not there.
Willy, thank you for giving Mathenge the wings to fly by providing him with the means of survival through Ford Foundation when he was almost at the verge of desperation and frustration as a result of broken promises from some political pundits.
To you, his dear friends and family, and others who played a significant part in his life here on earth and upon his demise, his family says thank you very much and may our Almighty God bless you and shower you with His abundant love and grace.
And now to you our brother, we thank God for the time He gave you to us. You were a blessing to us. As your family, if there is anything at all that we could have done and did not do to elevate your well-being, if there was any love not given, anything at all that was missed, we do ask for forgiveness. We are not sure if the dead are capable of forgiving, but they say that the dead look down over the living.
Mathenge, we believe you are getting some much needed peace and rest there in heaven. Rest In Eternal Peace Our Brother Till We Meet Again. AMEN. [Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.] Psalms 51:12
Karundi Mathenge Family
Thank you Mathenge’s comrades and friends living in Stockholm for giving him such honour as to put his story on the front page. It shows just how much you loved and valued my brother. Kudos to you all and God bless.
His sister Njoki
I met Mathenge through a small clique led by á few people. There was Zangi, Nderi, Ngugi, Osewe, Jimmy, Tex, Gerry, Oti, Odhis, Maasai, Marakwet, Moi, Kip, a bunch of kenyan men, and a whole lot of kenyan women that don’t need to be mentioned here. I was new in this city, and had only just learn’t a popular watering hole ‘Wallonen’ had just wound down. Kenyans only had Tre Remmare, Lilla Köpenham, Hirchenkellar, and at month-end, Fasching. Mathenge was a good man. He cared, he helped, and most important… He listened. Just heard his, and just said his. God rest his soul in eternal peace.
By the way, I apologise for what might be misconstrued about kenyan women. What I mean’t by that is that his romantic or otherwise liasions have NOTHING to do with me. Thank you.
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