Upon reflections, still in my state of distressing shock, I am inclined to believe that your last telephone call to me on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, at exactly 1.00 pm, was far more premonitory than peremptory.
Cut to the bone, your opening gambit foisted on me a burden of guilt: “Prof, good afternoon. How is your family? Ise nko? (How is work?) Prof, e ti gba gbe mi si Kuje (You have forgotten me in Kuje). The accusation was pointy and poignant.
I tried to put up a reasonable defence: “Not so o, my sister. I have been running around as a mediapreneur and I combine this with my continuous longing for and engagement with education. These two exertions are pretty time-consuming. In between them, I must grab every “free time” to pamper myself with adequate sleep.”
Your satisfaction with my defence appeared writ-large as you quietly responded: “I understand” in your characteristic good nature. There and then, you quickly got down to the raison d’etre of your call as someone who was ready to unravel. And that was exactly what happened.
You said you had kept to yourself so many things that had constituted pesky burdens and that you had now decided to open up to some of your friends. You shared with me some personal, family matters. I thanked you for the privilege of letting me into your “world” and I was really concerned about the magnitude of the burdens you had borne alone in the absence of your dear husband.
Your love for your children, for whom you went for broke in spite of burdensome enterprises, was great. You were apparently troubled by their state of affairs in and out of school-you wanted to help them chart progressive trajectories in life- like an abiyamo tooto (a genuine mother).
For the 21 minutes and 55 seconds that we spoke, I saw in you a mother that was ready to go the whole hog to help and protect her children. You were making the sacrifices for them and also for yourself, so that the Pastor Momoh family left in your care could receive the appropriate spiritual and physical guidance and recompense.
Sans the physical presence of the father of the house, your motherly shield would have continued to provide some significant succor and the concomitant quid pro quo, an understanding that is nested in a Yoruba aphorism: “Ti Okete ba di agba tan, omu omo e lo ma n mu” (A rabbit resorts to sucking the breast milk of its children in old age). This is not to be, as it were. But God knows why He allowed your homecoming at the intersection of June 4, 2024.
Your many friends and I never realized that the burden had weighed you down so much until the unexpected happened on that hideous Tuesday morning. Perhaps, if you had shared with some of your friends earlier as you decided to do later, just perhaps, our collective support would have taken the enervating pressure off you, your beautiful soul and “tender heart.”
As it is, we cannot undo your sudden, glorious transition. Having changed location by shedding the terrestrial for celestial body, thus widening the physical distance occasioned by the material separation, we can only engage in unremitting mediation of distance by constantly keeping you in our hearts.
That exercise will obligatorily find anchorage in the philosophical position of Hazel Gaynor, to wit: “To live in the hearts of those we love is never to die.” This also aligns with Thomas Campbell’s perception: “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
My dear sister, Pastor Joke, you live in my heart, and I dare say, our hearts-your friends. We love you so. This is the best way to honour your life and times, and to pay a worthy tribute to your memory.
Rest well in the Bosom of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, whom you served with dedication, heavenly focus and self-abnegation.
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