Time waits for no one. Can ten years fly like lightning? Wasn’t it yesterday that he was disappointed by what happened on August 16, 2007? Wasn’t pain sharper than the sharpest razor blade ever made? Didn’t I struggle to believe the saying that time will heal the emotional wound and eventually heal me? wow! As I look back on this month, I have no choice but to thank God for where he has taken me and my loved ones from. If He hadn’t been on our side all these years, where would we be? In fact, time has reduced the pain beyond description. May the name of the Lord be glorified forever and ever.

In 2003, an unexpected phone call from my younger brother, Osa, woke me from a deep sleep. I had bad news! His close friend in Nigeria had just called to inform him that our mother suffered a stroke: the right side of her body was paralyzed. A very cold shiver ran down my spine when I realized that all of his children lived outside the country. We were thousands of miles away. How was he going through this nightmare without any of us by his side? Tears became the order of the moment and stayed that way until I broke the news to my younger sister, Uyi, who lived in the same city as me.

Trying to imagine our mother partially paralyzed was traumatizing. After all, I just saw it a few months ago. She was so full of life during her vacation with us in the US that I walked her to the airport and stood there waving and watching her until she was out of sight. Little did I know that she was watching my mother walk on her two legs without support for the last time. This is life!

Prior to the advent of a stroke, my mother lived in the world of happiness that she herself created. We call it “her paradise of hers” of hers. He loved the comfort of it and paid for it in an instant. She always had staff for anything: a house helper, a cook, a driver, a gardener, and security or Gatemen as we call them. My mom didn’t need to lift a finger as everything was done for her.

His love for God was immeasurable. She remembers her gathering the children in the neighborhood and wetting their fleeting appetites with cookies so that when the real food (the Word of God) arrived they would have no choice but to participate. She also dedicated a room in our house to prayer. When we were young, my brothers and I feared being called into that room. We were known to spend at least a full hour in prayer with hunger pangs fighting to rob us of what little concentration we struggled to maintain.

Entertaining people was something my mother did with a pure passion. Even if we had a midnight visitor, she had a unique way of creating a dish with or without ingredients on the house. Her love of music went hand in hand with entertaining people. In the early 1970s, my mother ran speakers from her bedroom to the kitchen. How can I forget how the whole house would wake up to classical music or hymns most mornings. Just as music had a permanent place in our home, so did my mother’s love of art. From sculptures to paintings, she bought them as if they were going out of style. The assorted flowers in her well-kept garden were priceless to her. She talked to her plants every day and died even when the ugliest flower in the garden died.

One of us had to travel to Nigeria to be with our dear mother. Even though the timing was bad for all of us because, coincidentally, we were all dealing with individual storms that raged through our lives like mad dogs, my brother Osa, his only son and his last son, hopped on the next available flight.

Reality set in when Osa arrived in Lagos, Nigeria. Our mother was worse than we imagined. The original plan to care for her until she was strong enough to travel to the US a month or two later fell apart. Osa had to bring her back with him. They left three weeks later on a flight with a stopover in London.

Uyi and I spent the morning preparing to receive our mother. I had a hard time mentally imagining what awaited me. On the one hand, I can’t stand to see people sick or suffering. How could I bear to see my mother sick and helpless? I had no choice but to sweep my fears under the rug of fate and wait until I laid eyes on her. On the other hand, my sister was more than ready. She loves to take care of people and she had once toyed with the idea of ​​going into Nursing. She was mentally and physically ready to take on the challenge of caring for our mother.

I will never forget the moment we met our mom and Osa in the arrivals area of ​​the airport. We were so shocked to see our loving mother! I was a long way from the woman I escorted to the airport the last time she visited. Who would have thought that her next visit to the United States would be in a wheelchair? I was speechless, frozen in fear and in denial. The size and exuberance of her had shrunk so much: she was half her size and so helpless. His characteristic laugh that always announced her presence was nowhere to be found. She could barely speak. I was in a cocoon of shock all day. He just couldn’t look her in the face. How could she?

That night I got into bed with her. She was lying on her back and looking at the ceiling as if she was searching for answers to the many questions that were on her mind. She seemed content to be around her children and grandchildren, but I knew my mother was struggling with the unfortunate trap that her body was caught in. I lay down next to her in complete silence. The dream was far from me because of how much it hurt me emotionally. I looked at her in the dark and felt tears roll down her pillow. I was also crying silently until I gathered my strength and asked with a voice like I just woke up “Are you okay mommy?” She whispered to me “I’m fine, dear.”

The first weeks were hard. We wear the mantle of patience, dedication, and tolerance as we did everything under the sun for our mother. She was like a newborn baby in our helpless arms. I took care of her at night while my sister took care of her during the day. Although we felt burned because we didn’t know better and the guilt of seeing her like this tormented us a lot. Her visit to a particular doctor opened another chapter.

A series of examinations were carried out and she was referred to Physiotherapy. Her first day in her therapy was the beginning of the slow death of dependency in my mother’s life. The beautiful but assertive American therapist made my mother do some things we never imagined she could do even in the presence of partial paralysis. The therapist made us promise not to help her unless it was necessary. I openly welcomed the idea with relief, but inwardly I doubted my mother could cope, she was used to being coddled. My mom was not amused by this verdict. How could she? We assured her that it was going to be a gradual process for her own good. This was the beginning of the gradual banishment of my mother who was totally dependent on us or anyone to do things for her.

We started by ignoring her constant request to be put on the next available flight back to her comfort zone in Lagos, Nigeria. We weren’t going to help her escape to her “paradise” because with her stroke she had to do it herself or resign herself to the fate of permanent paralysis. As our mother attended therapy constantly, she saw that some patients came in without hands or legs, but with a fierce determination to do things without help. She began to see the responsibility of depending on others to do the little things that one can do for oneself. This motivated her and with time, faith and encouragement from everyone, she began to do things for herself to the point of mastering the use of her left hand and leg. She learned to groom herself, get in and out of bed by herself, get around with little or no help, feed herself with her left hand, and even go out with the family with minimal help.

He improved dramatically and realized that his idea of ​​”heaven” was actually hell because the ability to do things for yourself is an invaluable asset. Although stroke is the worst thing one can experience, in my mother’s case it helped us learn some invaluable lessons. On one hand, she exposed the ugly side of dependency, taught us patience and tolerance, increased our faith in God that nothing is impossible, fostered unity in our family, and discouraged taking advantage of any situation. We learned to live each day intentionally.

We had the privilege of having our mother for four more years. We all rotate taking care of her in our homes for 6 months to a year at a time. At approximately 9:30 pm on August 16, 2007, our beloved mother went to glory. She left a huge hole in our lives, but 10 years later, I can look back and thank God for getting us through this stormy but precious part of our lives.

Dear mommy, even though it still seems like yesterday, your beautiful memory will forever remain in our hearts. I miss you a lot! Sweetie, memories of the good old days, your unique laugh, jokes, mozzarella and almond madness and all you stood for. I am eternally grateful to God for the privilege of having a mother like you. I will always love and cherish you. Thank you for bringing me into this world, the beautiful life you gave us all, your values ​​and everything you stood for. Not a day goes by without a memory of you. May your beautiful continue to rest in peace until we meet again.

May the souls of all our departed loved ones rest in perfect peace, in Jesus name.