CELEBRATING LIFE | MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY 

My mother was called to glory on May 9, 2022, just after midday. While we had anticipated her death because cancer of the liver had taken a toll on her body, one is never quite prepared for the moment a loved one takes their final breath! There are no warning signs for the gut-wrenching feeling; like someone has suddenly and ruthlessly ripped your heart out!

Yet, in all that pain, there is a peace on the inside of you that one has rested from all the excruciating pain, and an even greater peace when you know that you know that you know your loved one now rests with the angels in heaven.

Mummy was a woman who undoubtedly and unashamedly loved her God! When I had the honor to nurse her through her first round of chemotherapy, I still remember so many mornings when I would hear her sing old hymns in her vernacular (Lugbara) – it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

It is no wonder that when I broke the news to her oncologist that she had passed on, his words were: “In the end, I’m glad I met her. She taught me one can be graceful even in suffering.”

Once, at the hospital, the head nurse, told me: “But do you see how many souls your mother has touched?”

(On many days, there was a steady stream of visitors to see mum, some actually came to sit with and encourage us. The story of how we took over the corridors, waiting area, reception and parking lot of that hospital is for another day).

Close friends, relatives and family talk of Mummy’s generosity and her absolute love for God and people. Some days, as I sit and think about her, I’m overwhelmed by all the things she did for people that we only got to find out after she was gone.

She truly lived up to Matthew 6:3-4: “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

God openly rewarded Mummy and we got to witness it firsthand through her battle with cancer. Help came from literally everywhere just when we needed it!! Through her death, we have started to see the fruit of all the seeds she sowed.

My brother said to me one evening – and reiterated it at the burial: “Mummy knew that for all the seeds she had planted to bloom and flourish, she needed to step aside.”

As heartbreaking and tough to take as that may sound, we understood it!

A few days after Mummy’s burial, when I was thanking friends for standing with my siblings and I through this tumultuous time, one of them said to me: She was too special for us to stay away. And she rests with all the angels.