Monday, June 30, 2025 - Below is a heartbreaking story of an elderly woman who collapsed and died upon receiving the devastating news that her son, who had been living in the United States for decades, had taken his own life.
This is Patrick Kariuki.
He passed away quietly in late May, alone in his apartment in
Azusa, Los Angeles County. His final days were marked by a silence that no
human being should ever endure.
Patrick was once a proud father of three: Lawrence, Laura, and
Lauren. Their mother-his wife-passed away in 2017. Since then, life became
unbearably quiet.
Patrick took his own life, leaving behind a note and a phone
with just one name in it-his son Lawrence.
Life had pushed him to the edge. He was living with a grade 4
brain tumor, at time experiencing memory loss, confusion, and pain.
It was the kind of suffering you cannot always explain with
words. His heart had been wounded many times-by grief, by separation, by
distance, by time. He had known love and he had known loss.
After his wife’s passing, he tried to rebuild. He found love
again with a Filipino partner, and they had a daughter. But that too was taken
from him-mother and child moved away, to the Philippines, and he never saw the
little one again. That toddler had become his new light, and when she left,
something inside him broke even more.
His relationship with his older children had grown strained over
time. Life happens. Distance happens.
Wounds do not always get a chance to heal. His daughters had
chosen to walk their own path, and even Lawrence-his only son-had grown
distant. But Lawrence never fully let go. They would still speak, every so
often.
When Patrick died, the county prepared to cremate him. No one
had claimed the body.
But then, Lawrence showed up.
He lives in Las Vegas now, working, trying to figure life out
like many 28-year-olds do. The last time he visited Kenya, he was just seven.
That was the last time he saw his grandmother-Patrick’s mother.
And in an unbearably cruel twist of fate, today, Patrick’s
mother-overwhelmed by grief, collapsed and passed away too. She had just
escorted mourners who had come to support her for losing a son.
I came to know of this story after a post on Wanderlust called
for any Kenyan in Los Angeles who could help. I reached out. I was connected to
Wambui, who then shared Lawrence’s number. After several tries, I finally got
through to him.
Lawrence opened up to me about his father. He told me about the
man who once served two tours of duty in the U.S. Marines. A man who wanted the
very best for his children. Life after the military changed him-perhaps in ways
not even he understood. But beneath all the layers of pain and distance,
Lawrence still saw his dad as a good man.
Today, Lawrence is grieving not just a father and grandmother,
but the complicated weight of everything that was, and everything that could
have been. Yet in his voice, I also heard something else-hope. Because now, the
Kenyan community has surrounded him. A WhatsApp group is up. Plans are
underway. People are showing up. Not for a headline, not for attention-but
because this is what community does. This is who we are.
Patrick’s relatives had hoped to come to America to send off
their son. Now they must bury his mother instead. And his father-an old man
now-must be comforted in Kenya with this double heartbreak.
Lawrence says he no longer feels alone. That for the first time
in a while, he feels lifted. Last few weeks, he has cried, but now he feels strong; the
community is carrying him. And when all this is over, he hopes to travel to
Kenya, not just to grieve, but to honor his father and now his grandmother in a
way they deserve.
I am hoping I can reach out to his sisters. Because grief does
not have to divide. Maybe, just maybe, there is still a way to bring them
together-one more time-for daddy.
Via Mukurima X Muriuki
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