Mechack Nzeza

Mechack Pongo Nzeza died at home on December 3, 2024. He was born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008. At approximately age 4, he was placed in an orphanage with his three siblings. He had suffered a severe brain injury that led to permanent damage and progressive decline. At 5 years old, after numerous life-threatening encounters with bureaucracy and then a sudden and harrowing decline in his health, he was miraculously delivered to New Hampshire for heroic neurosurgical intervention at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in early 2014. That procedure and subsequent medical management extended his life for almost 11 years, before he finally succumbed to his various neurologic disorders.

Though profoundly disabled, Mechack changed the lives of family and friends for the better. His absence will leave a hole in our lives forever, yet we are filled with joy that he has now been made whole. We look forward to one day talking and walking with him in ways we never could. He will always be remembered as a “pearl of great value” and a “hidden treasure.”

Matthew 13:44-46

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has to buy that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.

Mechack was joined in Bow by his biological sister, Sara Grace in 2016, who survives him. He is also survived by adoptive parents Kevin and Joy Cozzi, as well as adoptive siblings Noah Cozzi, Rebekah Fox, Rachel Laboy (MA), and Eliana Cozzi, in addition to a niece Hannah Fox and biological siblings, sister Severine Lyles (CA) and brother Edward Hanley (OK).