Mummy Beatrice Ani: Exit of the lioness of House of Louis
Life is a theatre of the absurd. It is unpredictable, short for many who are loved and cherished and unkind to another tribe of faithful ones. And the question has continued to rage, why do good people take their exit from this life too soon, why? And for my Mummy Beatrice Nwakaego Ani, nee Enwu, […]
Life is a theatre of the absurd. It is unpredictable, short for many who are loved and cherished and unkind to another tribe of faithful ones. And the question has continued to rage, why do good people take their exit from this life too soon, why?
And for my Mummy Beatrice Nwakaego Ani, nee Enwu, the lioness of House of Louis, Life came full circle for her early morning of Tuesday, May 9th, 2017 in Abuja. She was on her usual Easter holidays in my house when death struck.
She was a Community leader, a devout Christian and a crusader of social justice. She made a success of her career in the teaching profession where she rose to Headmistress special class before her retirement. She was a graduate of the Federal College of Education, Eha Amufu, Enugu State and taught in several schools in Enugu State.
She was born in 1947 to Mr. Ephraim and Mrs. Cordelia Enwu of Umubonyi in Enugu Ngwo of now Enugu State. She was the second child of the three surviving children of her parents. As a child, she showed strong character, dominated her environment and exhibited strong leadership qualities. She suffered no fool but was humane, caring and so protective of her siblings. God blessed her with amazing beauty and intelligence and she grew with these enduring qualities/attributes that set her out amongst her peers.
My mummy was a girl in a hurry, for at the age of 18, just with a primary six certificate, she married her heartthrob, the young Louis of Ibute Amaeke Ngwo (my daddy), in 1965. Her quest for a better future saw her return to school. She went to St. Cyprians Teachers Training College in Nsukka, a town in Enugu State where we lived then. She graduated with a TC2 certificate and later enrolled into the now Federal College of Education Eha Amufu, in Enugu State where she acquired a Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) certificate. Her brilliance manifested while she did the catch up in her academic pursuit that she excelled in all the challenges that came her way while in school.
As a teacher, she made an instant impression in all the places she taught, cutting across Nsukka, Enugu and when she finally returned to the land of her birth, Ngwo, where she taught at the Community Primary School, Ngwo uno (Okpokolo).
She guided the House of Louis, like a lioness, providing both support and inspiration to the family. She loved her husband and adored him and both navigated the challenges that confronted them together. Their marriage was a mirror, a positive one from where many assessed their marital lives. Both were inseparable that when my dad died on August 3, 2012, very few believed she will survive the separation. And that was exactly when the countdown to her own exit began.
My mummy was loving and caring; she loved her own and her neighbours, she cared for them and shared in their triumphs and tribulations. As the land lady of the House of Louis, she was the Mummy General as she took her tenants as her own.
Her desire to serve the Lord began early in life and it was total as her conduct, character and dispositions were all heavenly inspired. Her first convert was her husband and with this they built a godly home where the spirit of God prevailed. After a harvest of trials in some churches, she and her husband settled in the Assemblies of God, a church she belonged to until the last day. At the church in Amukwa in Nsukka she was severally the leader and facilitator in several church programmes. It was the same when she returned to the village and worshipped at the church in 9th mile. My mummy and daddy in furtherance of their desire to bring salvation to their people donated a parcel of land in which the Amaeke branch was built. They invested in the building of the church and guided it to growth. Till today the church has remained in safe hands and properly structured for service to God and propagation of the gospel.
My mummy’s last days started as early as 2012 after the death of daddy. For the almost three months she was indoors preparatory to the burial of her husband, her body system took a different turn. She emerged from the burial with constant complaints of pains on her waist, knee etc. It was obvious that the days she was home without any exercise or serious movement took a toll on her health. From 2013, she was always my guest in Abuja for the Easter holidays and in each of these visits she had gone to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital for medical checkup where she was always subjected to several tests. At no time was a serious or life threatening ailment discovered. In one of the checkups she was told by the doctor that the pains have to do with her weight and age. The doctors had always prescribed drugs which she had taken along while returning to the village.
The tragic visit during this year’s Easter was to take the same routine. She visited the hospital, saw a doctor and was asked to do some tests, including, ECG, chest x-ray, text on cholesterol, etc.
Monday, May 1, 2017, came like every other day. Throughout the day Mummy was her old self. She played with the kids, had her meals and “gisted”. The mood changed when around 8.30pm, she moved to the three -in- one chair and lay, facing down. In no minute, she complained about her right lungs, that it was choking her. An ointment was hurriedly provided and she went to her room to change into a skirt and blouse so that she could be properly attended to. That was when the true picture of the emerging tragedy started unfolding. She came back panting and gasping for breath, sweating profusely. Before anyone could say Jack Robinson, she was vomiting. She was rushed to the nearby General Hospital, Kubwa, where in a wheel chair; she was quickly moved into the emergency ward and placed on oxygen. She was diagnosed of congestive cardiac failure. Several drugs to flush out the fluids that had congested her lungs, legs and chest were administered on her.
Mummy was on oxygen for two days and on the third day when she had regained her stability she was moved to the female ward. By this time she looked okay and had confessed that the pains in her waist and legs had disappeared. That was when it dawned on everybody that the pains of the last five years were actually a deterioration of her heart. By this time she was walking to the bathroom to take her bath and all through this period she was eating well.
By Monday night, May 8th, I visited her with my wife, Chioma, her daughter in law, and some of my kids. On inquiry, the Nurse had noted that the Consultant handling her case may discharge her on Wednesday when he comes on ward round. It was with this positive feeling that she bade farewell to us by some minutes to 9pm. By 3am, my heroine, my lioness, my confidant, bowed to the superior will of her creator.
Life is but an illusion, it is pure deceit, this I confirmed with the departure of my mum. I speak with my mum on phone almost five times every day when she is in the village, and when I am travelling she calls me more than ten times before I get home. I start my day with talking to her and end it the same way. I get inspiration after each call for my mum was endowed with wisdom and common sense. And she cared much about me. I am beginning to believe that this life is not worth it. But is life a curse? I don’t know, the only thing I know is that it has not been kind to me. Why should my lioness, the one who protected me depart this way? – My brave mummy who fought many battles and won. She feared no body and I thought death could not subdue her especially in the manner it came. She believed in God and worshiped the one above in truth and in spirit. She actually had a specially relationship with God that was manifest. Her prayers had kept me and family going. If anybody had told me that I will be the one running around to package her burial, I would have cursed the person for I had believed that her grandchildren would have grown to take charge with me by the side given just advice. But look at it, not even to see Ebuka and Dera, her grand children, enter the University after being with them when they went to sit for JAMB.
My mum was a strong person, very dependable, very loving and a committed child of God. I am consoled by the words of people who had come into contact with her; I am more consoled that in reality I am not her only child. She was and is Mummy General, a mother to a nation. She is compassionate, humane, loving and accommodating. I honestly shouldn’t be the one talking about her virtues. But the tributes I have received are testimonies to the kind of mum that God gave me.
As I live the rest of my life, I will be dedicated to sustaining her legacies in all fields, I will continue to honour her and live according to what she taught me – to be kind, loving, accommodating but strong. I will be strong for her and for the House of Louis, knowing that God is with us. I will continue to celebrate her in my life. I will never depart from her wise counsel and I will continue to give God the glory for giving me this Angel as a mother.
Ani, who heads the Press and Public Relations Unit of the Police Service Commission, sent in this piece from Abuja.