Old Man Commits Suicide for Lack of Grandchild

A grandmother engages her grandchildren in a  story telling session.

Grandchildren are no doubt a source of joy. History has it that the only time psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud ever cried was when his grandson died. The death of little Heinerle Rudolph resulted in Freud’s first ever depression. Three years after the tragedy, Freud told a confidant that it had been impossible for him to enjoy his life since the loss of the young man.

And in Kenya, a 63-year-old man waited for so long to see his grandchildren that eventually, out of despair, he committed suicide. While undergoing treatment at Consolata Hospital, Mathari, in Nyeri, Godfrey Wabui Thuo said he had attempted to take his life away because his eldest son was approaching 40 and had not married.

The old man confessed that he was unable to overcome the desolation that faced him each day on arriving home, where he would be welcomed by his dogs. He said that he wished to see his grandchildren welcome him home instead.

Thuo, a father of eight, including two girls, was a wealthy man in his locality of Kanyenyaini location of Murang’a District. The old man operated a matatu in Murang’a, owned land in the nearby trading centre and had several other acres where he planted tea, and reared cattle, sheep and goats.

On the night of April 28, 1983, the old man decided to end his life. Thuo gulped a big cup of motor vehicle battery acid, jumped into a coffin that he had bought earlier in preparation for his death, and lay there waiting to die. But death did not come as quickly as he would have wished.

His family detected danger when the old man started groaning in severe pain as the acid burnt through his stomach walls and destroyed his internal organs.