THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF TRIBUTES TO MY MUM

(I am sorry this title is not so fancy but I am trying)

Part 1: 23 February 2021

On mum’s last birthday on earth, I wrote a cute little paragraph on my status, thanking her for being my mum but also for leaving me her wonderful genes. 😂 (which, to be fair, she did; by the Grace of God😌👍🏾). We laughed about it before speaking about something else.

In hindsight, this feels like one of those stories you read in literature class where the protagonist says something so seemingly innocent, but to the reader (or the students), they just foreshadowed a catastrophe.

Five months later, I lost my mum.

Now to the rest of the world, life went on. There was still crazy traffic on our way to the morgue. Still a reckless driver throwing curse words at the vehicle next to him. Still a lady on her way to work. To the morgue attendants, it was just another day, just another body.

I am going to go out on a limb here and admit that my world did not really stop turning immediately either. Granted, I barely have any recollection of the journey we took to lay her to rest – or whether we spent that night in the village or not. However, life seemed pretty normal, you know- I remember thinking ‘this grief thing is not as bad as I thought’.

Gradually, the wheels slowed down and eventually came to a halt. I think the worst (and commonest) form of grief is the kind that comes upon you slowly but with such great intensity, you cannot ignore it. No kidding, I remember confiding in someone (I have no earthly idea who that was now) that I believed (at the time) that because mum’s blood flowed through my veins, her death had killed something in me. Gory and dramatic as that sounds, I believed it. Grief really is strong; I do not know that our human bodies and minds are meant to handle it alone.

Anyway.

Part 2: (I have no title for this part either, I am sorry)

Mum and I had a relatively turbulent relationship during my formative years of adulthood. I mean naturally (or not) at that age, her thought process usually collided with mine. However, towards the end, our relationship had grown by leaps and bounds. She was my friend and so losing her felt…well, like losing.

Mummy loved the Lord. The Lord was her life, and dare I say, that chic loved him more than she ever did us? (Although no hard feelings ma’am, I totally get it)

A year or so before mum got ill, we started to pray as a family, or at least tried to. Every night, like clockwork. Again, in hindsight, I had no idea about the God she prayed to as much as I do now. I prayed, but not with her fervor. Some (most) nights I just did not feel like it.

And so naturally when mum was sick, the last message I sent her was a Bible verse [that I do not remember]. This was not because I believed in the power that resided in this Bible verse (because I know now that all Scripture is God-breathed) but only because I knew whom she relied on for what we all anticipated would be her healing. I knew that of all the things I could say to mum to comfort and strengthen her through this time, nothing could do it quite as well as a word from her Savior.

She did not come around to reading my message.

Part 3. (Why is this part 3?)

Now I could either make this a sob story and go into the theatrics of how much this incident wracked me (us really), or I could testify about how much the experience has since changed about me. 😂

My previous unhealthy addiction to sad stories demands that I choose the latter. 👍🏾

My life has Jesus-size footprints strewn all over it, especially in the moments when I did not see it. I have been carried by Grace for the better part of my life, even when I did not know it.

Someone once asked me how I managed to navigate life well over 10 years ago, and my one solid response, which I never doubted (and still don’t), was “my mum always prays for me”.And boy, did she pray. Mum prayed. And prayed. And prayed. Every time we prayed with mum, we ran out of prayers; but not her.

[Make your life a prayer]

She prayed that I might encounter Jesus for myself. I say ‘I’ because my brother has always been the kind to seek God as ardently as mum did. I know he hates it when I talk about him,but context. 😂 Sorry Akiiki. 😘

I imagine making such fervent prayers and seeing your daughter take one step forward, two steps back (spiritually)must have been exhausting. Sometimes I saw the frustration, but then eventually mum always picked it up again and continued to pray for our (my) own encounter with God. I know now that the strength to continue to pray was not her own.

[He energizes those who get tired, he gives them fresh strength]

So when I lost my mum, I felt many [MANY] things. But most of all, I felt disconnected from God. Like… wait, mum has been my anchor and my link to ‘her’ Father and now I do not have that anymore. My prayers felt like they were not only hitting a wall but also bouncing back.

But God remains faithful. 🥹💜 He came over and he was like ‘come on girl I got you.’ 😹😭

And so while for me, this was me finding my way to her (now my) Lord and Father, for her this was an answered prayer. And this is my confident hope - that no prayer is ever wasted in God. That the prayers mum made so fervently for me to encounter God were answered even when she was not around to see it. Her prayers went on ahead of her and he answered them.

[These all died in the faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar…]

[For the vision waits an appointed time. Though it tarries, wait for it, it will not tarry]

This does not by any means mean that I am a prophet (yet😂). But considering how far he has gotten me; I might as well be. I digress.

And so, fast forward and I am grateful for the journey that my mum’s God has put me on. So…did losing mum hurt, and does it still hurt? Yes, absolutely. But I am grateful that through loss, I was able to encounter God, the Comforter who comforts those who mourn.

[I’ll count it joy come every battle, because I know that is where you’ll be]

I am grateful that eventually, my world started to spin again. The God of my mum started to pick up the pieces. I encountered the Healer, who is constantly knitting me back together while I sleep.

[The Lord provides for those he loves while they sleep]

In so many ways, I am grateful that I encountered God the Saviour, because well, he saved me.

Finally, for all the three years I have lived since mum passed, the gene I am most grateful to have inherited from her is the ardency to fix my eyes on the one who reigns beyond the hills. And I hope I never lose that gene.

[But me, I am not giving up. I am sticking around to see what God will do.]

Thank you, mum. ❤️

[1 Thessalonians 5:17, Isaiah 40:29, Hebrews 11:13, Habakkuk 2:3, James 1:2, Micah 7:7]