Covid-19 job cuts threatened the position Georgren held with his employer – a leading FinTech. The company had evaluated it’s market share and was contemplating closing its operations in Kenya.

The CEO and Chairman, a Finnish mogul in his 70s was unequivocal. “If the numbers do not go North, I am afraid that we have to close our Kenyan operation”. These words in an Executive Committee (ExCo as it was called) meeting, meant that Georgren had to make tough calls to stay afloat. Yet, the numbers at home were not balancing out.

Georgren lost 23kgs in less than 4 months – all without any exercise. A once energetic and lover of life, Georgren had now become dependent on Twynsta to keep his soaring BP in check. He had lost many of his friends. He could not gather himself to open up and state what was the matter.

His wife of 23 years, out of the desperation of not knowing what was “eating” her husband, having made all efforts to seek counseling services without success, and out of the strain she was now going through to fend for the family made the difficult decision – to ask for a divorce. His performance at workplace was dwindling.

Every single time the phone rang, Georgren nearly got a heart attack. He always thought the worse could have happened.

23 Oct 2020 will forever remain etched on his mind. It was at 3 a.m. that she was called from Mateo Hospital. Lorna had developed complications at child birth. She was now comatose and hospitalized in the ICU. The baby was alright in the neonatal ICU.

Where was he going to get the cash to pay for all these bills?

Georgren could not even gather the courage to see the baby face to face. he hated himself. As he paced on the corridors of the hospital, he contemplated suicide to end all this misery that had befallen him ….

The narrator of this story left before I could catch the latest in the life of Lorna, Georgren and their bundle of “sorrow”.

My mind has been on overdrive. I have asked myself this one question, “Because of WHY?”.

Why did Georgren take the path he did? What lesson would any man out there take from Georgren’s experience? Why did Lorna insist on the relationship with Georgren when the tell-tell signs pointed to turbulence ahead?

We work so hard in life to make it to the desired positions in the society. Steve Farrar, in his book Finishing Strong: Going the Distance for Your Family, posits that one major thing that encumbers many men from finishing strong is the “other woman” in their lives.

… picture courtesy …