The news of cremation of a Nyeri nurse spread in the county like bush fire. Traditionally, the Kikuyu bury their loved ones but that was not the wish for Geoffrey Maina.
Maina, 53, left clear instructions in his will that he should be burnt once he died.
And that is exactly what the family of the father of two did on Wednesday.
His family collected the body from St Mary Immaculate Hospital mortuary in the morning and sped off to the Hindu Crematorium in Nyeri town.
Within three hours, the ceremony was done and thick smoke billowed to the sky.
That was in Nyeri however!
In Nakuru, a proposal by public health officer Samuel King’ori in 2015 for residents to start cremating their loved ones was met with harsh criticism.
With cemeteries becoming full, the then Kinuthia Mbugua administration had pondered having residents embrace cremation as away to pay their last respect to departed souls.
Residents however said practicing cremation would be to anger the forefathers and rouse bad spirits that would disturb the community and have far reaching consequences.
But with no space to bury the dead, should communities start embracing burning their late loved ones after death?