Find Your Wildheart

Then there wasn’t

“Nobody knows the hour of their exit on this earth.”

BUT I NEVER THOUGHT HIS WOULD COME SO SOON

The person who had been supporting me in everything I ever wanted to achieve …..disappeared.

For good.

I asked God painful questions. Broken. Crushed. Shattered.
Name them all.

What he saw through his eyes.

A naïve campus girl who did not yet know what business looked like.

A daughter who would speak an idea- any idea, half-formed, ridiculous, beautiful – and watch his face change. He never laughed at her. He cheered.

He saw a CEO before she had a company.

He saw a farm before she had soil.

He saw a kingdom.

He saw her the way she would one day need to see herself.

SO, WHEN THE TIME CAME FOR NAMING, there was never a second name.

King George.

My father. My hero. My company.

But first, let me introduce myself.

My name is Wambui. Most refer to me as “Wambu”. A few ones call me Ivy. An only child. Which everyone thinks is strange and lonely. It is neither. It taught me to stand up for myself before anyone else thought to.

From Bidii Primary to Gatanga Girls.

Crowning it at St. Paul’s University with Bachelor of Arts, Communication.

A communications degree.

Now I spend my days talking to mushrooms.

Grief gave me a strength I did not order.

It just arrives. From nowhere. You become strong because you have to. You find comfort in doing.

So I started doing.

I went for mushroom farming training .

I volunteered on other people’s farms. I watched. I asked. I stayed late.

I bought mushrooms and sold them to anyone who would listen.

The little money I made, I did not spend. I stacked it.

Shilling on shilling. Until.

THE DAY I BUILT MY OWN

Nobody warns you about the war.

They tell you farming is noble. They forget to mention it is also brutal.

• Pests strike when you blink.
• Water becomes a prayer.
• Capital is a horizon that keeps moving.
• Laborers need payments whether the crop cooperates or not.

And then there is the look. The one people give you when you say, “I am a farmer”. Like you said something embarrassing. Like the youth do not do dirty work anymore.

Good. Let them be surprised. Surprise is the first step toward respect.

HERE IS WHERE IT GETS STRANGE

Mushrooms taught me a secret.

They are the earth’s recycling bin. They eat what the world throws away. They break down death and convert it into food. They turn rot into nourishment.

Sound familiar?

They opened my spiritual eye. They put me in touch with a higher version of myself. They taught me to see.

And once you see the truth, there is no going back.

You see through the matrix. You see through the system’s lies. You start sounding crazy in an insane world. You unlearn everything you were fed. You relearn it on your own terms.

HERE IS THE PART NOBODY TELLS YOU

Grief is not the end of laughter.

It is what you do with the last one.

My father’s last laugh became my engine.

Every produce that breaks through the soil is him cheering.

Every order delivered. Every harvest. Every late night.

He is still laughing.

I just have to keep giving him reasons.

The reishi mushroom organic shower soaps

SO, HERE WE ARE.

If a thought keeps visiting you every day, stop running from it.

It is asking to be built.

Grab the bull by its horns.

Keep going.

STILL CHEERING · ALWAYS CHEERING

For King George.

IN LOVING MEMORY