“I’ll be there, God willing,” they say in Kenya.

They know what we, here in our cushioned world, choose to ignore; that life is fragile. A random snake out of the grass. A buzz in the air, circling a child. A truck veering, just slightly, on a narrow, pot-holed highway. Or a medical condition, where without the right tools, one is left dead from easily preventable causes. Kenyans know, instinctively, not to get too attached, because anyone can disappear as fast as the cheetah runs.

Yet how, as a mother, can you not feel the ripping of the heart when a son suddenly dies? Especially when that son had, despite the odds, overcome so many injustices and trials, and held the dream of family security in their now-grown hand?

As the founder of Kenya Keys, I’ve experienced 15 years of the agony and the ecstasy of watching this fledgling organization, and hundreds of students, navigate the turbulence of growth. Families, besieged by generational poverty, have emerged with proud “change-makers” – the child who will change the family story and will educate the others. The nearly incomprehensible prize. Pressure comes with being “the prize,” but so does great joy.

Last month, two of the these “prizes” were tragically lost in unrelated incidents, bringing all of us, but particularly the staff in Kenya, to their knees in grief. Any death is a tragedy, but knowing the grueling journeys and beautiful victories these two former students experienced makes this pain particularly poignant. Especially for those two mothers waiting, waiting for sons who never returned home.

Mungumi Mangale, Kenya Keys alumni and a beloved teacher. Smiling and confident, and with a mastery of equations and formulas his family could never comprehend, Mungumi could make math and chemistry compelling to even the least inclined student. Thanks to his devoted sponsor, he finished college, holding his diploma high, in 2016. The whole village celebrated! A college graduate! A devoted husband, he was now paying his wife’s school fees, so she too could graduate. He had even begun to pay the fees of his siblings, as well, after he’d done what was most important to him; buying a plot of land on which he could build a home for his mother. Strongly connected to Kenya Keys, Mungumi had also been a mentor and leader, actively working as part of the alumni network to help other students in their journey.

In just a flash, that sweet smile was gone. A crammed matatu (small transport van), run down, overused. A wheel flies off. Five people killed. With no 911, no life-flight to give anyone a second chance, their bodies went straight to the local morgue, only to be sent to another, since the first one was full. A mother. A wife-- waiting. Wondering. Life…Interrupted.

Five days later, director Joseph Mwengea texts the unbelievable; a second student has died. Another family prize. Julius Muti Madonga, a current college student, studying building engineering at the Sangalo Institute of Science and Technology. All he needed was medical attention and an inhaler— a simple shot of epinephrine to open his airways. But in Kenya, such is a rare luxury. With a history of asthma, his condition had worsened. Hesitant to ask for help, he had struggled breathing until one night, in his college dorm, the air simply couldn’t be grasped. His roommates failed to get help, because there was no help to be given. Country-wide, Kenyan doctors have been on strike since the government began withholding their pay as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With no PPE and their own dying, no doctor was available to help a student, full of ambition in potential, in dire need of only a small inhaler.

Stephen Kabani, weeping as Kenyans never do, mourned the loss of this boy, soon to be a man. “Julius - he was one of the best,” Kabani said. “So humble. So dedicated. So earnest. The family so, so poor.” The question remains, what will they do without him? “He was their hope. Their dream.”

I now prepare to call Julius’ sponsor, herself a college student, so intent on seeing him through. I’m surrounded by a room full of Christmas—warmth, beauty, anticipation. Yes, COVID fears and plenty of caution. But only a temporary blight on our cushioned lives.

There is no question that both Mungumi and Julius have left lasting impressions on their communities. Their siblings, their peers, Mungumi’s students, all will remember each man’s passion for learning and determination to create a better life. Such a gift is invaluable, and we pay homage to their examples, and to the individuals who, through word and through funding, supported them in their dreams.

God willing, I will be here in a year, still watching the dance of joy and sorrow unfold, on the two continents where my soul resides.

But now? My heart aches for the two mothers whose “prizes” never came home.