The Eulogy Your Gen Z Is Already Writing — And the First Love We Never Got Over
SAME FOREST. DIFFERENT MONKEYS.-Love month edition.
Over the last year, many of my generation have buried too many people too close to our age.
Agemates.
Friends.
Parents of children who sit in the same classrooms as our own kids.
It has a way of collapsing time.
Watching live or on YouTube, the sadness is permeating.
A friend sent me a tearjerker last week.
I watched it but heard different things, saw different things.
What’s been quietly changing, though, is not just who we are burying —
but how the children speak.
Once you get over the shock of seeing young people with nose rings, dreadlocks, cornrows. The occasional mohawk and other chicken-comb looking styles.
After judging their parents, remember yourself at that age,
Afro rowdy hair patted down to look presentable — we used water and the back of a hand-held mirror (there was a guy called Ray Parker but that’s a story for another day).
I don’t know what they use nowadays.
Anyway, the mane has been tamed temporarily.
Gen Z eulogies are different.
They are not polished. They are not ceremonial. They are not padded with polite lies.
They are honest. They speak of love — yes.
But they also speak of absence.
Of stubbornness. Of silence.
Of things that were never resolved but somehow forgiven anyway.
What’s striking is not what they say.
It’s what they edit out.
Anger is softened. Distance is rephrased. Harshness becomes “discipline.”
Emotional unavailability becomes “He tried in his own way.”
“She was weird” becomes “she had a connection to the spiritual world.”
One young speaker said it plainly, almost casually:
“He wasn’t perfect. But he showed up when he could.”
Not out of dishonesty — but out of survival.
The uncomfortable truth is this:
the eulogy is not written at death.
It is drafted quietly on ordinary Tuesdays, while everyone is still alive.
If your Gen Z were asked to speak one year after you were gone, what would they say
and what would they carefully avoid saying?
That question isn’t about guilt.
It’s about awareness.
And it sits with you.
Love Month Is Not a Month. It’s an Exam.
After writing that, I needed to breathe…. (it’s difficult to write about sadness)….
Let’s talk about February.
Imefika. (It has arrived.)
The love month has begun —
which in Kenyan terms means expectations have already outrun reality.
For some, love is flowers. For others, love is peace. For many, love is simply not being stressed.
And yet every year, we treat February like a performance review.
People don’t break up in February because they “discovered the truth.”
They break up because expectations were never aligned — and it finally showed.
We’ve become very good at diagnosing relationships with fancy language.
Commitment phobia. Separation anxiety. Childhood trauma.
Mummy issues.
One excuse that always sneaks in from that “contrarian” in the group:
“Their family has a history of mental issues.”
“That one is crazy.”
What some of my friends at a certain table call Boiro.
Boiro finds its way into the Kenyan dictionary as a representative term initially named after a famous African meat dish: boiled meat.
It’s a you guy my guy kinda statement.
Given the difficulty murima people have pronouncing certain sounds, “boiro” stuck.
Wekelea boiro! — the call to action that is music to every butcher’s dream.
Put on the boiled meat.
But Boiro evolved.
It became a utility word like Wueh.
Boiro is a very efficient word.
It can describe pain. (The pain is boiro.)
Enjoyment. (This place is boiro.)
Admiration. (That guy’s car is boiro.)
Ecstasy. ( She’s boiro.)
It covers everything.
But sometimes the truth is much simpler and much less dramatic:
you weren’t a fit.
Not every failed relationship is a psychological thriller.
Some are just a mismatch of timing, temperament, and emotional effort.
Could we have been setting ourselves up for rejection right from the start?
Did we give too eagerly or too scarcely?
Did we try to curate affection instead of checking capacity?
February exposes that — loudly.
The trick is not to survive love month.
It’s to stop over-curating affection and start being honest about what you can actually sustain.
That honesty would save people a lot of heartache, money,
and a lot of self-questioning using online therapists.
The Sales Story We Don’t Like Admitting
In one of the sales courses I teach, we have a section on the Staircase pitch.(not the elevator)
It has three parts.
First, ask the client to describe their current position — the as is.
Second, their desired position — the should be.
Third, what has stopped them from achieving their goal — the barrier question.
As the salesperson, you then aim to widen the gap between the current state and the desired state to the level that, when you drop the solution into that gap,
The client helplessly says YES to your ruse.
Is it ethical? Is it human?
While the jury is still out,
A cash register rings. A bank message comes in. An Mpesa alert buzzes.
Another sale. Another conquest. Another notch in your belt.
Natasha’s school trip to Diani is paid for.
I’ve watched deals die quietly not because the solution was weak,
but because nobody wanted to ask the one question that would make the room uncomfortable.
Sales doesn’t fail because people don’t work hard enough.
It fails because people avoid asking the uncomfortable question.
Comfort is not confirmation.
From the ashes rose the maternity ward
After death, life has a way of insisting on being noticed.
In the same season where memorial services are becoming more frequent, we are also watching elite athletes step away from competition to create life — and return stronger.
Kenyan long-distance star Beatrice Chebet — double Olympic and world champion in the 5,000m and 10,000m — has announced she will take a maternity break during the 2026 season as she prepares to welcome her first child.
Her agent shared that she called this “the most important race of my life,” and she is expected to return to peak form in 2027 with her sights firmly set on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
And while Chebet focuses on motherhood, another Kenyan legend is taking the idea of life further in her community.
Faith Kipyegon, herself no stranger to greatness and comeback — having returned to the track after maternity before — has launched the groundbreaking of a maternity wing in her home area of Keringet, aimed at improving maternal care and reducing preventable deaths in her community.
This project — a partnership with Nike and local health partners — is designed to ensure that mothers and newborns have quality care close to home.
Maternity breaks in sport are often framed as interruptions.
They’re not. They are incubation.
They also come with quiet resistance — contracts that expire, timelines that punish pauses, systems that reward constant motion.
And yet, choosing to stop — intentionally — is an act of clarity.
Life does not move in straight lines.
It moves in cycles.
Death reminds us of endings.
Birth reminds us that continuity is stubborn.
Both belong in the same conversation.
Same Forest. Different Mothers.
Born From Muted Dreams
There’s a question many people are quietly asking as they watch Gen Z creatives, athletes, and entrepreneurs emerge with confidence:
Where did this come from?
The uncomfortable answer is that many of these talents were always present — just postponed.
Previous generations were not less gifted. They were more constrained.
Less exposure. Higher risk. Fewer safety nets.
More responsibility, earlier.
Dreams were muted not by lack of ability, but by timing.
Did radio and social media stars get birthed out of their parents’ talent?
Why didn’t their parents pursue those dreams?
Was it lack of exposure? Education?
Or was it just not their time?
Some children are not rebelling.
They are completing stories their parents could not afford to start.
This is not about blame. It’s about context.
Talent does not appear out of nowhere.
It transcends generations.
Mi Amor (My First Love) (sang to the tune of Diana Ross & Lionel Richie’s 80s hit Endless Love)
The HSBC Sevens tickets are sold out.
Nyayo will be full. The noise will be familiar.
Which means planning has already started.
Who you’re going with. How you’ll get there.
What you’ll wear.
What stories you’ll tell afterwards.
Sport has a way of pulling us back into community —
not because it’s perfect, but because it’s shared.
In a week that begins with death and ends with planning for joy,
That’s what matters.
Sherehe (celebration)
#KenyaCornerIsHome
Same forest.
Different monkeys.
Great!
Very interesting Febana