Throught our history we have experienced many tragic events, the recent one being the genocide against Tutsi that claimed well over a million people. I dare say it was the first televised genocide in world history. The world looked on, arms akimbo, and did nothing. Rwanda was written off as a failed State. Not.
But when tragedy hits one Family, taking a mother and eldest son it is too much to bear. On April 20, 2026, (Mrs) Rosine Kabano, 45, and her eldest son, Kendrick Kabano, 18, were tragically killed when a truck hit them on a highway in Madisonville, Texas. The tragic news rattled the Texas Rwandan Community as well as the Rwandan diaspora across the globe.
See, Rosine was an unshakeable pillar in the Rwanda Community of Houston. She was as gorgeous as she was vivacious. Her small stature fooled nobody. When she spoke people listened. She and Mike opened their home to one and all. They were the rock of the Rwandan Community, welcoming new immigrants from all African countries, but especially Rwandans.
Rosine, may she rest in peace, was the backbone of her family. She assumed the role of a mother for her siblings, and Mike counted on her to stay the course. She was truly a good wife, great mother to her three children, a great cook I am told. Her smile was radiant and infectious. Our Community was the better for it for her living in our midst.
Now she is gone, and we are the poorer for it, but she will never be forgotten. The good die young. Time heals wounded hearts and bruised memories. This one is painful to the core, and may never subside.
Young comedic Kenrick, a mere 18 years and in the prime of his youth was his father’s pride and joy. What’s a father to do with a loss like this, pain beyond measure, to have been deprived of the chance to see his heir grow into a man, cut down in his prime years, with a brilliant dazzling future as a star basketball player who also graced the Rwanda National Basketball Team as one of their elite players.
To Mike’s credit, he was raising Kenrick in the African tradition, respectful, honorable, answerable, and appreciative of his roots and heritage. In his eulogy in church, with a broken heart and words that moved over 1,000 mourners to tears, one felt a father’s pain and sorrow that one cannot forget. But we were reassured by Mike’s strength and appreciation of the man Kenrick had become, and the foundation Rosine had laid for the family.
On May 2, 2026, as the clock struck eleven, with heavy hearts and broken dreams, relatives, and hundreds of friends, neighbors and Kenrick’s school buddies gathered to say a somber final farewell. This huge congregation was testament to what the Kabano Family has come to represent in the City of Houston. It was truly a befitting tribute to two beautiful souls we shall behold till the end of time.
In the words of Maya Angelou;
“And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always irregularly,
Spaces fill with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed.
Rosine, Kenrik, RIP.
