Why do people end up killing themselves? That is a question that many Kenyans at Maseno University are pondering over after the discovery of the body of a female lecturer yesterday together with an elaborate suicide note she had left behind citing marriage problems.
Mrs Pamela Jaoko K’Ouko, 50, (pictured above) a senior lecturer in Zoology at Maseno University, had been missing for a week before her decomposed body was found yesterday floating in a river.
Interesentingly her husband, Dr Evan K’Ouko, a radiologist and a former lecturer at Maseno, however, denied the couple had any domestic problems, and even added that they had breakfast together on the last morning he saw his wife alive.
A few years back an interesting study was done in Japan where incidentally about thirty thousand people commit suicide every year (one person every 17 minutes).
The study involved a very sickly chimpanzee called Leo who was still somewhat cheerful and grateful for the small pleasures he got out of life even in his sorry state. The conclusion was that because Leo did not have the sense of envy, grudge, or misery, he was not depressed or despaired thinking about his past or future. He was not envious, resentful, or jealous on others who had complete freedom of their bodies. He did not fill his imagination with negative thoughts.
Human imagination, being the cause of despair, is also the producer of hope. Human beings should realize that the difference between hope and despair is only in their brains.
The Maseno case no doubt has more to it than meets the eye because others have contradicted the claim by the husband of the deceased that all was well in their marriage.
Read the story in full.
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So eager to die, she couldn't wait for Christmas 
What a sad way to exit life and at the same end the year. Thoughts are we those she left behind on both aisles of the families. May her soul find some final rest regardless of what may have caused her sudden and painful departure.
ReplyDeleteThe wounds suicide leaves in the lives of those left behind by it are often deep and lasting. The apparent senselessness of suicide often fuels the most significant pain.
ReplyDeleteIts sad, but most marriages are ailing, people just persevere. When it goes beyond,its better to quit and lead a quiet separate life.I share the sorrow.
Mental health related issues and complications are at times the eight-hundred-pound yellow snake in the living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, compounds and lives of twenty-percent of marriages on the African continent.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many reasons why people who are affected by mental health issues or reside in households where one of the spouses - husband or wife - suffer from mental health complications need to come forward and seek immediate help before major catastrophes occur or rare their usual ugly heads.
On the other hand, there are some of us who would beg to differ with the assertion that MOST marriages are ailing... given the fact there are fair good percent of traditional marriages as well as not-so-traditional marriages, including other forms of civil unions that are not in the ICU or have ended up in the graveyard of marriages.
Lest some people out there forget the fact that things do wrong and will go wrong in situations where two individuals - man and woman - are involved in long term relationships that are assaulted from all corners of life by fleeting competition, enemies of traditional marriage, and other well embedded agents of anti-marriage approach in modern world.
Life is not all about smooth sailing on a golden lake, or a long extended cake-cutting ceremonious lifestyle, because things are bound to wrong in one way or another at any given time, week, month, year or first five years in the lives of married couples.
Therefore, when things go wrong, its the means and ways through which the couple concerned or parties involved decide to handle it as they seek amicable conflict resolution.
Unfortunately, the easiest way out taken some couples leaves a bitter taste in the public's eye.
May the souls of all the people who took their lives for whatever reason, find some sort of rest in the afterlife.
What really caused the fifty-year old lecturer and mother of three to snap and end her life in such a tragic way? What was the last straw that drove her over the edge, to the point where tossing herself into the raging river waters was the only alternative? There is a lot that goes on in people's lives and minds that the public will never ever know.
ReplyDeleteMay her soul find eternal peace that seem to have evaded her while she was alive. Hope the appropriate cleansing ceremonies will be carried out in order to appease her former mortal body in light of whatever circumstances that may have tortured and harmed her in ways that failed to be known and shared with close friends and associates.
ReplyDelete+RIP.
Anon @9:44
ReplyDeleteEti cleansing ceremonies???!!##
Aiiii. Please explain.
Just curious.
There are some in our midst who know a lot about tragedy and are aware of how heaven and hell are part of life on earth.
ReplyDeleteSomething must have gone in life of the late lecturer, or she must have been going through the worst of times in a marriage that she had hoped would bring about the best of times, or at least the usual reasonable expectations of good times to some extent.
Anyway, the souls of people who exit the earth as we know it through brutal or painful death are believed to remain restless until those left behind make amends in order to finally release the souls of the departed into restful places in the afterlife.
Otherwise, believe it or not, call it - African - superstition if you will, more victims will continue to be claimed by the river, especially along or near the very spot where the late lecturer met her painful demise.
Cleansing rituals on behalf of the victims who have died at sea, on land (roads) or in rivers around the world are done very often than some of us be aware.
Lampedusa in Italy, is one of those places where the local fishermen continue to honour the dead and latest victims in order to appease the mighty sea as well as the souls of the victims, thus creating a peaceful eternal coexistence.
Cleansing ceremonies are done in many ways that are conducive to the those left behind. They are normally carried out in the form of a memorial service, religious ceremony, a private gathering in accordance with local traditions and customs.
May the former lecturer find some sort of final rest regardless of what may have driven her to forcefully and permanently withdraw herself from her family, friends and life as most of us have come to know it.
A study made based on a Chimpanzee. Is this post meant to make one laugh?
ReplyDeleteEeah! Ati, thirty thousand (30,000) people kill themselves by committing suicide every year in Japan? Wow! If that were the case then over 100,000 Japanese people would literally end their miserable lives in a matter of seconds if they were residents of Kibera, Mathare, Kwawangware and other dangerous slums of Nairobi, where running water, sewage system, access roads, electricity, security, schools, univerties, hospitals, super markets, sports stadiums, movie theaters, underground railway system, and other countless social amenities are nonexistent and will never be available in the next two decades - 2014-2024 and 2025-2035.
ReplyDelete