Memorial held for mother and son killed in Ethiopian crash

Family members of Stella Osebe and his son Adam Mbicha Konarski during a funeral service at SDA church Milimani. [Beverlyne Musili/Standard]

As sombre funeral music played in the background, Pawel Konarski stood up and carefully straightened the pictures of his late wife and son.

Mr Konarski, a Polish citizen, lost his Kenyan wife Stella Osebe and their one-year-old son Adam Konarski in the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed on March 10.

Yesterday, Konarski was joined by family members, relatives and friends at Nairobi’s Maxwell SDA Church to bid goodbye to the two.

At the start of the service, two brown coffins draped in flowers were wheeled. Due to the lack of bodies, a family member told The Standard that the family would bury soil from the scene of the crash.

Family and friends eulogised Adam as a calm and joyful child and his mother as an ambitious and dedicated young woman who broke boundaries.

After graduating from the University of Nairobi, Stella entered the service industry, working as the lead hostess at the Nobu International Hotel in Dubai, a customer care agent at Safaricom and a ground and air hostess for Qatar Airways.

Despite her numerous professional successes, a year after her marriage to Konarski in August 2015, Stella quit her job at Qatar Airways and moved to Poland so she could focus on her family.

In September 2017, a week after Konarski landed a new job in Saudi Arabia, Stella delivered their first-born, Adam.

“I moved to Saudi Arabia to secure a better future for our family,” Konarkski said, lauding Stella for her strength in delivering and caring for their newborn son in a foreign country without him.

Stella and Adam had recently moved to Saudi Arabia. Konarski movingly stated that he would miss the moments they spent as a family, including taking Adam for swimming lessons and running on the grass as they played football.

At the time of the crash, Stella was travelling to Kenya to visit her family. Her mother Hephisibah Mbicha was at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport waiting to welcome her daughter and grandson. Sadly, they never arrived.