Widow Finds Unexpected Love on African Safari

April 20, 2006 — -- For anyone who's struggling with the loss of a loved one and feels that the world has been turned upside down, Anna Trzebinski has a message.

"I think that it's very, very important to be brave enough to be open-hearted when you've gone through something that could close your heart down," she said.

The fashion designer once embodied the Nairobi, Kenya, version of the soccer mom's life. Born in Germany, she'd moved with her family to East Africa, growing up near the idyllic setting made famous in the movie "Out of Africa." At 24, she married Tonio Trzebinski, a Kenya-born artist, and had two children in quick succession.

"My children really grew up with dirty faces and hair that was far too long, and muddy feet and swimming in rivers and, again, a very different but lovely childhood."

They -- and Tonio -- defined her world.

"What I wanted to do with my life was to support his career as a painter. But it was difficult at times, that's for sure. I was often very unhappy. I don't think I'm different in that from any other woman."

That is, any other woman whose husband was having an affair. Trzebinski's discontent grew as her husband's attention wandered. The bubble burst when, one night almost five years ago, he was shot dead on the way to visit his lover.

The slaying, still unsolved, destroyed Trzebinski's world. It also rocked the international jet set.

"And before we knew it our life stories were plastered across newspapers all over the world, including Vanity Fair. I was reading about my life in a way that I didn't see my life at all."

Trzebinski had no idea how her husband's death would transform her own existence.

"You know I think that I had one life until that point, and then I have another life from that point," she said. "I feel like one of my lives ended there, and something completely different has started."

Numbed by the pain of her husband's death, she turned to the source of solace that had worked so well in the past: the African bush. Along with some girlfriends, she went on safari in the remote high desert of northern Kenya.

"And we had walked for eight hours," Trzebinski said, "hot, tired, exhausted, took our shoes off, laid under a tree, and it was actually one of my girlfriends, turned and said, 'Oh my goodness, who is that person?' And we all turned around to look at him, and I was like, 'Yeah, who is that person?'"