Phillip Chidavaenzi-Special Correspondent
Even as I write this, it feels absurd.
Tendo’s obituary!
I refuse to call it an obituary, but reflections.
To many, she was R Tendo, a bastardised version of her first name, Rutendo (in picture) with Phillip.
To me, she was just Tendo.
If I could write in tongues, I would, because I don’t think there are words in the languages we speak that can ably capture the real essence of who, and what, Tendo was.
But I will try.
Some people come into our lives as livewires and fireballs of energy such that you can’t imagine death ever touching them. And such was Rutendo Tapiwa Chigudu, always the soul and the life of a gathering, making it impossible even to imagine her lying somewhere cold and lifeless.
My heart is sore, and just the thought of never hearing her say “Daddy Rabbi” — as she loved to call me — cuts to the core. Death is indeed the way of all flesh, but the abruptness of her departure makes it all the more painful.
Just a day before her death, she had spoken to my wife Lyn — who wanted her to lead prayer on her Phenomenal Woman Foundation platform — as part of their intercession team.
But when the day, the time, came, Tendo was not online.
And we would learn later that day in a heart-wrenching moment, that it was probably around the same time she was dying.
Earlier this month Tendo had told Lyn she wanted to do her devotions on the PWF platform on Monday mornings so that — in her own words — she could be my forerunner as I was doing the Rhema Bible study session on the same platform every Monday evening.
This only happened once — last Monday — and it is not going to happen tonight, or any other Monday evening for that matter, because Tendo is gone. How heart-wrenching that can be!
I first saw Tendo over 10 years ago reciting a poem titled “Testament of the Menses” at an event held at the Harare International Conference. (Every time I would remind her of that time years later, we wound end up in fits of laughter over the irony of that poem).
“Testament of the Menses”. It was typical of Tendo to come up with such a title for a poem to address the sensitive subject of menstrual cycles — and linking that to the burden women seem fated to bear in a patriarchal society.
And Tendo was artistic to the bone: from her flair with language on paper, to performing poetry on stage, and her involvement with various theatre productions and films etc.
It seems Tendo had a knack for controversial titles. I also used to tease her over the daring title of one of her blog posts on the environment — “The Arrogance of the Penis” — in which she threw potshots at men with the habit of weeing anywhere, everywhere.
She wrote of men “who just arbitrarily yank out their winkies from their trousers and point at some tree, wall, wheel or whatever feature is convenient at that particular moment and wee!”
It is that passion, which ran so deep in her heart, that led her to pursue a Master of Arts degree in Applied Drama at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her shining talents saw her working for, and with, various organisations such as Patsime Trust, Almasi, Reps Theatre and Zimbabwe Women Writers Association. She also featured at various arts and culture fetes such as the SADC Arts Festival and Harare International Festival of the Arts while she also made regular appearances at the Sisters Open Mic sessions at the Book Cafe.
Tendo was such a multi-talented creature, dabbling in theatre, literary and performing arts and also had stints as a television host and film actress and also worked as a writing consultant.
I remember, in one of her lowest moments, she reached out to me seeking a place to stay after she had come home and was preparing to pursue her degree programme in South Africa. I directed her to Lyn — who had watched her perform at the Book Café several years earlier — and she said to her, “Baby girl, come home.”
So, we stayed with Tendo for a month or so at our home, then in Damofalls, and it was she who potty-trained our daughter. So sentimental. And what a time that was! The sharings, the debates, the discussions that went deep into the night!
The Tendo I saw then was different. She came broken, and allowed my wife to become the “midwife” to her spiritual destiny. Together with two of our spiritual daughters whom we were staying with at the time — Susan and Abby — they would pray their way through the night until the wee hours of the morning.
Tendo was so determined in the pursuit of her education because, as she told us, she wanted to be an example to her kids, and she wanted to give them the best. That determination was probably only second to the hunger for God that drove her relentlessly in that season of her life.
Those experiences marked the beginning of a new, special relationship in which she allowed us to mentor and parent her spiritually, and, to her dying day, she had become family.
Tendo was her own woman, unshakeable in her faith and convictions, firebrand in her 0pursuit of God. In fact, having started off as a feminist (if I can use that term) one would never have imagined that Tendo would allow God to change the trajectory of her life, and make her sold-out for the gospel. For me, this was almost unbelievable, almost like Paul’s Damascene moment.
To say Tendo was influential would be to minimise her impact. She was an influencer. The way her death sent Facebook, for instance, into meltdown, is testimony to that.
Her death has broken hearts from all walks of life. It is indisputable that she touched the lives of many, including many that she had not even met physically.
Many of the single women she was mentoring in PWF — including some that had not met her in person — are still in shock, and all are testifying of how her passion, her drive, her commitment to help them saw the transformation of their own lives in different ways.
During the time she spent at our home, sometime in 2017, I had opportunities to wrestle with her over the book I was writing at the time, “Give Me Souls, Or I Die!” as we discussed how best to package it, and I attribute to her the final shape that the book eventually took.
It was the same with “Sword in the Wilderness” — my fifth novel that I intended to release just before COVID-19 happened — whose final form was influenced in many ways by her after the many discussions I had with Tendo because I respected and highly valued her literary insights. I am sad, though, that she has gone before the book was out. I would have wanted her to read it.
Just a few weeks ago, she video-called and my wife and I chatted with her amidst laughter. I asked her when she was coming home because it had been so long since we had last seen her. And she said “soon”. And this was not the “soon” I had anticipated — where she would be coming back home in a coffin.
That I will never see her again, or hear her say “Daddy Rabbi” will certainly take time to sink in. Tendo was fun to be around. Sharp.
Witty.
Incisive.
Go well, my friend, my daughter.
We will meet again.
Rest easy, Tendo.
The writer is the former Features & Lifestyle Editor for NewsDay, and currently Editor of ZimGospel Masters magazine.