Journalist Ciru Muriuki has opened up about how grief completely changed her life after losing both her father and her fiancé, Charlie.
Ciru Muriuki began with her father, whom she described as her anchor, mentor, and best friend. His death from COVID was sudden and shocking. He was admitted to the ICU on a Tuesday and died that same Friday.
The speed of it left her feeling lost and disoriented. Even while grieving, she had to push her emotions aside to handle painful duties like writing his eulogy, choosing a coffin, and organizing the funeral in just a few days.
Five years later, she still finds it hard to accept that he is gone. She struggles to hear people refer to him as “deceased.” To keep him close, she listens to recordings of his voice, talks to him as her ancestor, and calls him by his full name, John Mambbo Moroki.
How Charlie’s Death Affected Ciru Muriuki
But the loss of her fiancé, Charlie, brought a different kind of pain, one she described as “unrelenting.”
His young age and the suddenness of his death made the grief overwhelming. She suffered physically and could not sleep or eat. She lost almost 30% of her body weight in the first twelve weeks.
What broke her even more was how she went from planning their wedding to planning his cremation almost overnight.
She said it felt like she had been pushed into an alternate universe where everything around her seemed strange and everyone else behaved like nothing had happened.
Emotionally, she felt disconnected from the world. She wished she could step out of reality and return to a place where Charlie was still alive. Spiritual questions also weighed heavily on her. She felt betrayed by life, by faith, and even by Charlie, because she truly believed prayer and trust would keep such tragedies away.
On top of that, hurtful remarks from people made her doubt herself, and she wondered at times if she was somehow to blame. She remembers him lovingly and fully as Charles Susan Wiro Kodia.
Ciru’s story shows how grief can break a person open in every possible way. Yet by speaking about it, she is slowly learning how to carry both the pain and the love at the same time.
By Vivian K.