"In loving memory of Baba" - by Masimba Lovemore Kuchera

"In loving memory of Baba" - by Masimba Lovemore Kuchera

msc

Thu, 09/03/2026 - 19:54

It has been just over three weeks since the world, as I knew it, changed forever. Three weeks in which I have tried to find the words to write this tribute. I have started it in my mind many times, but somehow the words have never seemed adequate. How do you compress 86 years of life, and a lifetime of being someone’s son, into a few pages? How do you write about a man whose influence is woven into so much of who you are? Perhaps that is why it has taken me three weeks to write this.

It was Saturday, August 8, a day I know I will remember with painful clarity for the rest of my life. I was in the United Kingdom, thousands of miles away from the man I called Baba, and I was with his two grandchildren, Taremekedzwa and Taropafadzwa. To me, he was Baba. To them, he was Sekuru—Granddad.

Just six days earlier, on August 2, they had seen and spoken to Sekuru by video call. These calls had become our ritual, a way of keeping us connected despite the thousands of miles that separated us. During what would become their final video call with him, Sekuru blessed them. None of us knew…