I had the honour to meet Tessa last year at TNI and all I can remember of our brief chats was warmth, witty jokes, large smile, an engaging, practical, dynamic and welcoming person. I wish I had known her better. All my warm wishes to her TNI colleagues who must all be heartbrocken, as well my sincere condolences to her husband and little Vera of course. I can barely imagine their loss but send them all my support in these terrible moments which must feel surreal.
Marie x
This is terrible. Please give our condolences to the family and also
courage for all of you in TNI.
best,
Paul de Clerck
My deepest condolences and sorrow to you and all the colleagues of TNI for the loss of Tessa. And thank you for writing such beautiful words and the initiative to make a book for Vera. I have got to know Tessa as a colleague of my partner Niels when she was still working at the internet provider XS4ALL. The news of her death has shocked many (former) XS4ALL colleagues who are friends of Tessa and Rejo.
Warm wishes,
Nathalie van Haren
So sorry to hear this everybody! My heart
and prayers go out to all of you!
In love, sadness and solidarity.
Tom (Thomas Reifer)
This is such sad news. Tessa, with her dark curls and quirky sense of humor. How utterly tragic.
I am so sorry.
Please pass on my condolences to her family and to all in her TNI family.
Warm wishes,
Gisela
Dear Fiona, dear all,
Thank you for notifying us on this terrible news.
I knew Tessa from our student days, back when she still had blue hair.
She was indeed a remarkable, sparkling, funny woman and I can well
imagine how hard this loss must be for you and the TNI colleagues.
I'll notify the people I know who knew her and also will write whatever
I still remember to the emailaddress you gave us, in the hope also that
that might be a small consolation for her family which indeed she loved
dearly.
My condolences to you, the TNI colleagues and all those others in FGG
who knew and worked with her.
Best
Anne (Anne van Schaik)
This is just so shocking and unbelievable. What a terrible mishap. I would meet her whenever I came for a Fellows meet and there she was always willing to help in various ways no matter how minor or silly my requests might be. I remember her calm presence and involvement in the discussions and her deep commitment to the causes that animate TNI. Life is sometimes very cruel. From here in Delhi Pamela kept in touch with Tessa in regard to the Praful Bidwai memorial activities and is also very saddened to hear of this. Please convey our deepest condolences to Tessa's family and to those who loved and admired her.
Achin and Pamela
Dear all,
Even though I did not know Tessa in person, I can imagine that you are all shocked by this terrible news. By coincidence I went to the funeral of my stepfather yesterday. He was 90 years old and even that was sad. So I can begin to imagine what a loss this is, for all of you and her family.
I wish you all the possible strength in the hours, days and years to come.
Tamara Mohr
What a terrible, senseless tragedy. Tessa was such a gift to TNI... smart, funny, snarky on occasion just enough to make me laugh.
I always loved how she appropriated the notion of being a "gardner" to grow TNI's on-line presence. She was so delighted with Vera, so proud of her.
Rejo and Vera will have amazing stories to remind them of this committed, passionate woman they so loved.
So sorry for their terrible terrible loss. And sorry for all of us who will miss her.
love to all
Phyllis
What terrible news. I know Tessa as a bright, humorous and incredibly knowledgeable person.
Tessa showed me around at TNI during my time volunteering there. She was always incredibly patient, helpful and positively-minded. What a loss.
I meant to contact her in recent weeks but never did. I regret that. It's another reminder of how short life is.
My heart goes out to Tessa's family, friends and colleagues.
Donald (D.R.C. de Groen)
Since 2014, we've been working together with Tessa to create and improve the TNI.org website. Up until last week, where she just introduced us to two colleagues of her, because she though it was about time that others started to understand the website than herself.
Ever since we've met Tessa, she has always been very actively involved, passionately about little details and great open source matters. I can recall Tessa mocking on us for, although we're an open source company, using commercial software like Google Drive. And all those times that she brought cookies and chocolate to the office, hoping that she cloud bribe us into spending a few more hours of work.
Tessa: you'll be missed.
Baris Wanschers
Managing Director at LimoenGroen
This is so very sad and hard to believe. Tessa was a wonderful person to know and work with, and she will be greatly missed.
Please give our deep condolences to her family and friends
Martin Smith
Deeply shocked and saddened. Deepest condolences to her family.
Walden
-
Dear all,
Such a terrible shock. I keep thinking about it.
Tessa was such a lovable person as well as/because of being spiky and very much her own person.
I loved her independence of mind. It meant she always contributed in an original way to our discussions. She was also kind to, and curious about, everyone. She was many of the reasons i found it such a joy to visit and hang out at the TNI. Like all of you i will miss her deeply and strongly .
I would have wanted to be at the funeral to share our grief and to celebrate such a wonderful person who, as Fiona said, had such a potential yet fully to realise. But it would be difficult for me to come to Amsterdam on Tuesday.
I'm sure Vera and Rejo will carry her spirit with them in the way Pablo Neruda describes in that wonderful poem on how those we love live on..(i attach it as i have always found it inspiring when others I have loved died. (i'm sure most of know it but i pass it on for Reja and Vera too just incase it is of comfort at this heartbreaking time).
I feel her spirit will live on through all of us, especially those who worked with her closely and will continue to make TNI such a fun place to be. We must never forget her and what she meant for each of us.
With much love and sadness but funny , inspring memories.
Hilary
How long does a man live?
So, how long does a man live, finally?
And how much does he live while he lives?
We fret, and ask so many questions –
Then when it comes to us
The answer is so simple.
A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,
For as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,
For as long as we can ourselves live,
Holding memories in common, a man lives.
His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touch,
His children will carry the weight of his love,
One friend will carry his arguments,
Another will hum his favourite tunes,
Another will still share his terrors.
And the days will pass with baffled faces,
Then the weeks, then the months,
Then there will be a day when no question is asked,
And the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach,
And the puffed faces will calm.
And on that day he will not have ceased,
But will have ceased to be separated by death,
How long does a man live, finally?
So Many Different Lengths of Time
-Pablo Neruda-
My deepest condolences to Rejo and Vera, and expression of sorrow to share with all of the TNI family who were deeply shocked. What a terrible turn in life, especially for a parent with a young daughter, while enjoying fun with her! At TNI she was able to show and promote another way of life and going about relationships and information sharing. She will very much missed but hopefully her example as a web gardener will inspire many to come.
With love,
Myriam Vander Stichele
Dear friends at TNI,
I was shocked when yesterday evening I learned via Twitter that your wonderful web gardener Tessa Kersten-Zenger suddenly died, last weekend.
I never met Tessa in person, but was in contact with her last summer to learn more about TNI's website redesign. I have a lively memory of a pleasant and very informative phone call with Tessa.
I grief with you over this loss and send my condolences to her husband and daughter.
Erik Wesselius
Corporate Europe Observatory
Dear TNI team,
We were all devastated by the sad news of Tessa’s sudden death. Our deepest condolences to her husband, daughter and friends among which the TNI-team. We wish you all lots of strength.
I am sure she will be missed but never forgotten.
From all of us at ActionAid
Ruud
The news is hard to take in. The world will not be the same without lively Tessa. She cared, dared to doubt, and was honest, whether you liked it or not. She was a wonderful person and a sweet and dear colleague I will not forget.
I think of you, Tessa, Vera, Rejo and TNI colleagues.
Love to all,
Rozemarijn.
Tessa and I have been aware of each-others existence since 2014. She tweeted a shorter version of a TNI-report at me when I said we were fucked because of TTIP and ISDS.
Our next interaction was in in 2016 when some dude literally submitted a motion to kill the elderly like we do with cats and dogs to prevent that they are “used up” and poop all over the place. Tessa assured me that it just was a badly formulated motion to introduce the option to painlessly kill yourself when you had enough of everyone’s shit. Having lost friends and colleagues to let’s call it surprise, shocking suicides because suddenly your son is not only in the closet but he is dangling from a noose as well meant we quickly found common ground. Still I found myself yelling NO DEATH SQUADS (paraphrase) to Tessa which was quite ridiculous because she absolutely had no such plans.
We closed the case when we agreed that there was at least one ass-hole pleading for killing the elderly to “end their suffering” but that he wasn’t calling for mandatory death squads. Dude was still an ass-hole though.
When we decided to follow each-other I don’t quite remember, what I do know that I was constantly in Tessa’s hair about issues concerning the political party we both seemed to be a member of.
Anywhoo we started interacting more and more and we really liked each-other, like really really. And that is quite something because I have a temper that goes from stationary to 666 in one word. I’m absolutely certain that Tessa knew I go from zero to ass-hole before you can blink and I do that for the most ridiculous reasons. Tessa accepted all of that repeatedly.
And she even loved what she called my work. I do not know what kind of work I do. I blast opinions on Twitter all day, every day. If you follow less than 2000 active tweeps I will dominate your timeline. I am an organic spambot. A bag of meat and bones who tweets almost 24/7 and that earned me the friendship of Tessa. I do not understand why.
What I do understand is that Tessa was a highly intelligent woman who probably did more for all the goals that I stand for than I ever will.
Still she asked me if she could give me a Christmas present for all the work I supposedly or allegedly do. I don’t do shit but she still rewarded me by giving me a copy of Divinity: Original Sin 2. Tessa even reanimated her long dormant Steam-account for that and I was like meh, can’t you get an account a Good Old Games to give me the game that I pirated last week? Cuz I kinda want it without DRM. Tessa was like nah and she was absolutely right.
Tessa knew me through and through. Tessa and a friend invited to wining and dining with me just last week but then unstoppable bullshit happened. I’m going to blame the planet for that. Because Tessa is dead. Fuck you planet! While she could could read me to the bone and accepted my every flaw, she somehow still liked me. I adored her.
I would like to thank Tessa from the deepest of my heart for constantly fuelling the fire in me to keep sticking it to the man and above all I would like to thank you for everything. I will forever love you. And I will eternally miss you.
I love you Tessa. Thank you. I’ll never forget you.
Petra Kramer
Tessa's Tafel
Voor mij was Tessa iemand die naar dezelfde wereld keek, maar vaak andere dingen zag. Nooit bang om te zeggen wat ze ergens over dacht, ook als het geen populaire mening was. We hebben samen goede en slechte periodes meegemaakt en er zijn heel veel verhalen die ik zou kunnen vertellen uit de ruim 5 jaar dat we intensief hebben samengewerkt. Bij klantenservice van XS4ALL, en later op de helpdesk.
Bij klantenservice hadden we een losse tafel die tijdens de vrijdagmiddag borrel dienst deed als kroegtafel. Al vrij snel begon ze de tafel met pen, plakband en papier te verfraaien. Langzaam maar zeker groeide die tafel vol met verhalen, van onze teamgenoten, van regelmatige bezoekers en toevallige passanten. Iedereen werkte mee. Voor mij was het Tessa die deze organische samenwerking vormgaf en uiteindelijk een volledig unieke tafel liet ontstaan. Toen al was ze curator van mooie beelden en bijbehorende verhalen.
Gevoelig en begaan met mensen en dieren. Toen haar kat van het balkon gevallen was, was ze ontroostbaar. Een onmisbaar deel van haar toen-gezin was haar ontvallen. Hoe immens triest dat Tessa op 43 jarige leeftijd haar eigen gezin is ontvallen. Ik ga je missen cosmic twin.
Gerdien Dalmulder
At the TNI office we’re already missing Tessa more than we’d ever imagined. In my case, I miss our brief but frequent exchanges, in particular our disagreements. Tessa and I shared a passion for images and design, but we often disagreed about the look of our website, our logo, our briefing papers, etc. I loved to talk with somebody who would forced me to explain why and how I didn’t like something and engage in a conversation based on arguments, not just mere opinions. On the other hand, I discovered that we had a lot of musical, artistic and cinematic coincidences, with a common appreciation for particular bands (Nine Inch Nails, for instance), muralists (Mona Caron, for example) or movie directors.
I will also miss her enthusiasm and professionalism at work. More than once I presented her with urgent requests, ranging from applications for ISBN numbers for TNI publications to an article to be uploaded on our website. Tessa would initially pretend to be grumpy (for good reasons, as she was too often overworked), but I knew that in a few minutes our requests would be granted.
This is not the first time we face a tragedy in the TNI family. Two years ago we lost another comrade and friend, our dear Praful Bidwai. Those were very tough days for all of us, but Tessa somehow overcame the grief and went straight to work, including many hours dedicated to liaise with Praful’s relatives and friends far away in India. What Tessa wrote about Praful at that time now seems very appropriate for her today: “I still not actually believe this is real. The realisation comes with little shocks that this intelligent person with vivid eyes is not among us anymore”.
Daniel Chavez
Beste allen,
Ik las zojuist het schokkende bericht van Tessa’s overlijden. Wat een intens verdrietig nieuws en groot verlies voor jullie. Ik wens jullie: collega’s, vrienden en natuurlijk ook de familie veel sterkte bij dit groot gemis. En hoop dat haar gepassioneerde, creatieve en vrolijke energie blijft voortleven binnen TNI!
Warme groet,
Hijke
I am grateful to have shared fun and funny moments with Tessa. Everytime I went to the TNI office Tessa would greet me with a smile and many questions and opinions about my work, her work, Amsterdam Noord, web gardening and vegetable gardening, neighborhood initiatives and food coops. When I was facilitating meetings at TNI, Tessa would pass me little notes to encourage me, smiley faces and comments about herding cats. She was a source of great questions and great ideas.
Much love to Tessa's family and to the TNI family.
Analia Penchaszadeh
Dear All,
We are really saddened to know about the sudden demise of Tessa.
Tessa was a lovable and wonderful person for all of us.
Please accept our heartfelt condolences for this huge loss.
TNI Myanmar Team did good deeds for Tessa by donating 100,000 kyats at
Orphan Nursery Center at Yangon in Myanmar on 23rd Feb 2018.
(Please have a look the attachments.)
She will live in our memories forever and
our spirit is present too on Tuesday.
May she rest in peace.
Warm wishes,
Phwe Phyu
Behalf of TNI Myanmar Team