You are a Civil Engineer….building roads. So you know when time comes for you to take your exit, you have to take it.

Yours came on the morning of July the 24th, and you took it.

Don’t worry about us, Oldest Brother……..you have built the road, and we shall continue down the road until we too, reach our exits. We shall endeavor to love one another and take care of each other, with the same spirit that you have set for us.

Among your many siblings, you were in a class of your own; only you were “my eldest brother” to every one of us. We cannot even begin to understand the weight of that responsibility; growing up, mum and dad taught us to value, respect and honor authority, and conversely to live up to what was expected of us. You could expect any one of us to come to you at any time and for any reason; for advice, permission, protection, gũcuuka mũndũ… You had an ear for each one, however huge or small the issue. You wisely resolved controversies, ever the peacemaker, and held us together in a way that we are only now starting to understand.

You had a really big heart. You sincerely shared yourself to the people you knew; your family, friends, their friends… You readily shared your time, resources, and ideas. You were endowed with intelligence beyond measure. You were not afraid to acknowledge your weaknesses, and readily repented of them and moved on. Thus, you set very high standards, which always challenged and motivated us to excel, and continue to do so.

Well Mwaniki, in these last few months, you have yet again redefined the word “strength” to us…. We watched you battle that cancer, we saw how it ravaged your body, and we saw how you forged on and achieved so much at a personal, professional, spiritual and even emotional level… as if to tell the cancer “you can take my body, but you cannot take my spirit”. It was an awesome display of endurance and inner strength.

We shall be forever grateful to God for giving us our Mwanĩki mũkũrũ, and for the privilege of observing God at work in your life. We take courage from the knowledge that you have rested in Christ. You have passed on the mantle to us; with God’s help, we endeavor to soldier on.