The End Is the Beginning

Some love stories do not end. They simply change form.

On 5 October 2026, my beloved husband, my best friend, my partner in dreams, and the co-founder of Bailao & Co, Kenneth Skoubølling Jacobsen, tragically and unexpectedly passed away, leaving our family and everyone who loved him in unimaginable shock and sorrow.

During this deeply painful time, we kindly ask for privacy, compassion, and respect for our family's grief. Above all, we wish for Kenneth to be remembered for the extraordinary person he was, the love he gave, and the many lives he touched.

There are no words that can truly describe the absence of someone whose presence was woven into every part of your world.

Someone you loved, dreamed with, built with, struggled alongside, laughed with, and imagined growing old beside.

Kenneth was a man with an extraordinary heart.

A dreamer. A creator. A storyteller. A father. A friend. A husband.

Someone who believed deeply in people, sometimes even before they believed in themselves.

He believed in giving more. More love, more time, more opportunities, more of himself.

He saw possibilities where others saw limitations and carried dreams far bigger than the circumstances around him.

He had an incredible imagination, a beautiful creative mind, and a genuine desire to make a difference in this world.

But sometimes, in giving so much to everyone and everything around him, his own dreams took a back seat.

And sometimes, so did his rest.

I think this is something many of us recognise.

We become so busy building a life, providing, supporting, surviving, and trying to become everything we believe we should be that we forget to actually live the life we are creating.

We postpone our happiness.
Our healing.
Our dreams.
Our peace.

We tell ourselves there will be time.

But time is the one thing none of us is promised.

The past two years had tested us in ways we could never have imagined.

On 30 October 2024, a fire devastated our home, beginning a long period of displacement, temporary housing, uncertainty, and the exhausting task of rebuilding stability for our family.

A home is so much more than walls and possessions.

It is where we feel safe. Where our children grow. Where we rest, dream, love, and belong.

Losing that stability affected us both deeply.

At the same time, we were trying to bring Bailao & Co, a dream we had nurtured together, into the world.

Over the past months, Kenneth took on additional work to help us regain stability, find a permanent home again, and give Bailao the foundation it needed to finally stand on its own.

He worked incredibly hard.

He wanted to provide, to build something meaningful, and to leave something beautiful behind for our children.

I saw his determination. His generosity. His belief that somehow, together, we would make it all work.

But I also saw how much he was carrying.

I worried about the long hours, the pressure, the exhaustion, and how little space there seemed to be for his own wellbeing, creativity, friendships, and dreams.

Sometimes, in the midst of everything we were navigating, the concern I tried to express was not always received in the way I intended.

Perhaps we had both spent so long navigating uncertainty that even love sometimes struggled to find the right language.

We were two passionate people with big dreams, big hearts, and all the beautiful imperfections of being human.

Like every couple, we were learning and growing along the way.

I wanted him to understand that he did not have to carry the world on his shoulders.

That he was already enough.

That his worth had never been measured by how much he could provide, accomplish, or give.

I wanted him to have time to write, to create the film he dreamed of making, to spend time with friends, to follow his passions, and to experience the simple pleasure of being alive.

I wanted a life with him, not simply a future we were endlessly working towards.

Because I never wanted him to stop dreaming or giving.

I wanted him to experience the beauty of everything he was working so hard to create.

And I think this is a conversation we need to have more often, not only in our homes but also in the world of work and entrepreneurship.

What is the purpose of building a beautiful life if we are too exhausted to experience it?

Two days before Kenneth passed, he asked me a question I keep returning to.

“Are you stressed about turning 40 in three years?

I told him no.
Quite the opposite.

I had reached a place in my life where I genuinely felt honoured by every year I was given.

Growing older had become something beautiful to me. A privilege rather than something to fear.

When we met six years ago, I remember telling Kenneth that I had always carried a strange feeling that I would leave this world young.

Perhaps because life had been difficult for so long.

There had been years when simply continuing to fight, to survive, and to remain strong for my children required more strength than I knew I had.

But something had changed within me.

Even the fire that took our home became part of what I eventually began to understand as a course correction.

Not because suffering was necessary, or because everything painful must happen for a reason, but because it made me question everything about how I wanted to spend the life I had left.

Over the past year especially, I began slowing down.

Listening to my body.

Finding my way back to nature, movement, meditation, breathwork, water, and stillness.

Learning to stop living in constant survival mode and instead find moments of peace in the present.

I began seeing each birthday differently.
Each morning.
Each opportunity to begin again.

I no longer wanted to rush towards some imagined future where everything would finally be perfect.

I wanted to be here.
Now.

And Kenneth and I laughed about how, in 2029, I would turn 40 and he would turn 50.

We joked about throwing one enormous 90s party to celebrate both milestones together.

Music, dancing, our children, our family, our friends, and all the joy we imagined those years would bring.

We had plans.
So many plans.

Neither of us could have imagined that just two days after that conversation, he would be gone.

I keep thinking about how differently we understand time when we are suddenly reminded how precious it is.

How much of our lives we spend fearing age, when growing older beside the people we love may be one of life's greatest gifts.

I would give anything to watch him turn 50. To see the lines on his face deepen from laughter. To celebrate all the ordinary, beautiful years we thought were waiting for us.

And perhaps that is one of the most important things I want to carry forward.

Do not fear growing older.
Fear forgetting to live while you are here.

Bailao & Co began as a love letter to my grandmother.

To the women who came before me.

To ancestral wisdom, to nature, to the healing power of ritual, and to a way of living in which presence mattered more than productivity and the smallest everyday moments were treated as sacred.

Growing up between cultures and continents taught me that there is beauty in bringing our different inheritances together.

Through Bailao, I wanted to honour my African ancestry while embracing the Scandinavian appreciation for simplicity, nature, craftsmanship, and intentional living.

I wanted to create something that reminded us of the things our ancestors understood so deeply.

That wellbeing is not simply something we purchase or achieve.

It is something we cultivate.

Through our relationship with ourselves, with others, with nature, and with the world around us.

A candle can be more than a candle.

It can be an invitation to pause.
To breathe.
To remember.
To reconnect with ourselves and the people we love.

But Bailao was never something I was building alone.

It was our love child.

Kenneth believed in the vision, even when it was still only a dream.

He brought his creativity, his ideas, his hands, his heart, and his own dreams into what we were building.

Together, we imagined something beyond beautiful objects or candles.

We imagined an African-Nordic house of wellness.

A place where ancient wisdom could meet modern life. Where beauty had meaning. Where rituals could bring us home to ourselves, to nature, and to one another.

And where, one day, our success could help create safer futures for women and children through the maternal clinics and safe houses we dreamed of supporting in Guinea.

It was never simply about what we could sell.

It was about what we could give back.

And perhaps, most importantly, what we could remind people to feel.

Kenneth believed that dreams were worth pursuing, even when the road was uncertain.

He believed in the possibility of creating something from nothing.

And when I look at Bailao today, I see so much more than a brand.

I see our conversations, our late nights, our laughter, our hopes, and the pieces of ourselves we poured into making something meaningful.

What began as a love letter to my grandmother became a love child between my husband and me.

And now it will forever be a love letter to him, too.

Kenneth was a giver.

And I loved that about him.

But one of the most important lessons I had begun learning through my own journey was that giving and receiving are not opposites.

They belong together.

Over the past year, as I learned to slow down, reconnect with nature, and listen to my own needs, I had hoped that perhaps seeing those changes in me would inspire him to give himself the same permission.

To rest without guilt.
To dream without pressure.
To create without needing to justify the time spent creating.
To take care of himself with the same generosity he extended to others.
And above all, to receive.

Because sometimes the people with the biggest hearts find it the hardest to believe that they deserve the same care they so naturally give.

We cannot spend our entire lives pouring love into the world without allowing some of that love to pour back into us.

Giving is beautiful.
Generosity is sacred.
But so is receiving.
So is asking for help.
So is allowing ourselves to be held, cared for, and loved without having to earn it.

Even the strongest among us need somewhere soft to land.

And perhaps this is a lesson our modern world desperately needs.

We celebrate ambition, sacrifice, resilience, productivity, and the people who never stop.

We admire those who give everything.

But what if we also celebrated the courage to rest?
The courage to say no?
The courage to choose presence over performance?
The courage to admit that we need each other?

What if success was measured not only by what we accomplish, but by how fully we experience the lives we have been given?

By the relationships we nurture.
By the memories we create.
By our ability to find joy in an ordinary Tuesday.
By whether we have enough left of ourselves to receive the love that surrounds us.

We do not have to exhaust ourselves to prove our love, our worth, or our commitment to our dreams.

We do not have to postpone joy until everything is accomplished.

And we do not have to give until there is nothing left of ourselves.

Kenneth and I were still learning these things.

Still growing.
Still finding our way.

And I thought we had so much more time.

In our tradition, we honour the passing of a loved one with 40 days of silence and mourning.

Forty days to be still.
To reflect.
To grieve.
To honour their memory, their journey, and the love that remains.

For me, this is not simply a period of absence.

It is a sacred opportunity to practise everything Bailao & Co was created to represent.

Presence over performance.
Intention over urgency.
Being over doing.

I am observing these 40 days of mourning by stepping away from our usual public communications and allowing our family the space to grieve without expectations or the constant demands of the outside world.

For the first time in a very long time, I do not want to rush towards the next chapter.

I want to honour the one that has just ended.

To make room for grief, gratitude, memories, and the love that will never leave us.

To be present for our children.

To allow myself to feel everything that comes with losing the person I had imagined sharing the rest of my life with.

And to extend to myself the same compassion and permission to rest that I so deeply wanted Kenneth to experience.

Grief is not something that can be measured by productivity.

Love does not disappear because someone is no longer physically beside us.

And healing cannot be forced into a schedule.

Bailao & Co will continue.

But it will continue with a deeper understanding of what it truly means to live intentionally.

When I return to creating, I want it to be from a place of presence, love, and purpose rather than urgency or expectation.

Because even in our deepest sorrow, we deserve the space to simply be.

One of the last things Kenneth said to me was:

“The end is the beginning.

Those words have taken on a meaning I could never have imagined.

Because while the life I thought we would share has changed forever, the love behind what we created has not disappeared.

Bailao & Co will always be a love letter to my grandmother, to my ancestors, and to the wisdom they passed down.

But from this moment forward, it will forever be a love letter to my husband, too.

A reminder to live our dreams rather than endlessly prepare for them.

To stop waiting for the perfect circumstances.
To honour our bodies before they demand our attention.
To spend time with the people we love.
To celebrate growing older.
To walk barefoot on the earth.
To feel the sunlight on our faces.
To light a candle without needing a special occasion.
To share a meal, a story, a laugh, or a moment of silence.
To create simply because creating makes us feel alive.
To give generously, but never until we are depleted.
And to remember that receiving love is just as sacred as giving it.

I cannot change the time we were given.

I cannot rewrite the moments we lost to worry, responsibility, or fear.

But I can choose what I do with the love that remains.

I can continue what we started, with greater presence, deeper intention, and the understanding that no dream is worth losing ourselves in the pursuit of it.

I want our children to know that dreams are worth following, that love is worth choosing, and that strength also means knowing when to rest.

I want them to remember their father for his beautiful heart, his creativity, his laughter, his generosity, and the love he gave.

And I want the people who encounter Bailao & Co to feel something beyond the beauty of what we create.

I want them to remember to live.

Not someday.
Not when everything is perfect.
But now.

To everyone who has supported us, believed in our vision, or welcomed a little piece of Bailao into your home, thank you.

To everyone who has surrounded our family with love during these heartbreaking days, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Your kindness has reminded me that love is not only something we give. It is also something we must allow ourselves to receive.

There is still love to give, beauty to create, ancestors to honour, and a future to build.

And I intend to do it without forgetting to be present for the life unfolding along the way.

Rooted in Ritual. Rising in Radiance.

In loving memory of Kenneth, Bailao & Co will be observing a period of mourning and quiet. Thank you for your patience, kindness, and understanding as our family takes this time to honour his life and legacy.