Former Tusker Project Fame winner and gospel artiste Ruth Matete recounted the deaths of close family members in an emotional Instagram post.
The mother of one explained that her mother died while she was still very young due to mistreatment from her step father and it made her father come take her with him after which a few moths later her mother would die, “My mother died when I was 8 years old. My step father beat her so badly and she was taken to the hospital because of the injuries.I was still living with her and my step father. So when she realized that she may not make it out alive, she called my father and asked him to come get me. I was still very young. So my father just used to come and visit me in the village. Since my mother was still alive, it was better to be with her. My dad came and took me with him to the city. This is where I have been since then. My mother later died a few months after I came to Nairobi.”
Her step father and step mother too later died, “My father was married to another woman here in Nairobi who also later died. (My parents got me out of wedlock and they both got married to different people). My step father died last year.”
In 2020 her husband, Pastor John Apewajoye also died from an accident after being married to Ruth for only 4 months, “My daughter’s father died two years ago. While in the ambulance after the accident, he told me he wasn’t gonna make it. I thought it was just fear. So I kept encouraging him that he would be fine. He told me all he wanted me to do (I felt like it was those Afro cinema movies). He gave me the name of the baby regardless of the gender. Toluwa is a unisex name. Gave me a message for his sister and brother as well. God gave him two weeks. In those two weeks, each time I went to visit him, he would ask me “Oh! Am still here? It’s like he waited for death. I felt like he didn’t fight to live. But anyway, I will never know fully.”
Matete acknowledged people lose their spouses in her family and asked people to keep her and her family in prayer, “My father losing my mother. My father losing his wife. Me losing my husband. Just a pattern of people losing their spouses. Am I over thinking? In all these, I have been praying fervently to God for long life. Keep praying for me and my family,” she wrote in part.