WHAT HAPPENED NOW, AUNTY MOJOKO?! CHAAAAACH!!
Didi and I called the hospital and spoke to Ewange and Etonde on Wednesday night and they said you’d had a good day! We didn’t get to talk to you because you had already drifted off to sleep, but we told Etonde to tell you to get your vocal chords ready for Thursday evening since we were bent on calling back and having you join us in a repeat performance of “I KNOW WHO HOLDS THE FUTURE”, which you sang with us, IN IMPECCABLE ALTO, s’il vous plaît, just last week – via 3 way calling. From that to getting a text from Tabe the very next day saying you had “passed on to glory about 25 min ago”???!!! MANYAKA!! YOU??!! The very epitome of Thoroughness, Efficiency, Capability all rolled up in one, who has always just taken care of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE?
I have to hit the "rewind" button on this one!:
It’s the early 70s, and you and Uncle Mafany have just moved to Yaoundé from Bamenda. Didi and I beg your sister to allow us to “go for holidays” across town to your “Airport House” there by Brasseries Du Cameroun – even promising to weed her pepper and njama-njama garden patch behind our Messa house FOR FREE! (You know she paid us an astounding 25 francs per “weeding session” in her own bid to help Papa Ahidjo out with the “GREEN REVOLUTION” thing)! She gives in and lets us go, that time, and countless other times over the years as you moved from there to Essos, and then to Quartier Lac, where I stayed under your roof my entire 3rd year in Ngoa-Ékélé! God Himself knows what a DELIGHT it was every single time because we were always SHOWN, (not just TOLD), how WELCOME we were at your house!
It’s very early on January 1, 1981 and this heretofore unknown person we later on found out was called Mr. Mbah, has been to our “MINIPRIX MESSA” house to tell us your nephew has been involved in an accident! We get to Hôpital Central and find that he’s gone – no notice whatsoever oh! Your sister sits down by his lifeless body, holds his hand, doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word! Your niece, Ebob, is putting all Olympic gymnasts to shame with the somersaults and cartwheels she’s turning. What is the one thing I think to do in that situation? Ask that Mr. Mbah to take me to your house in Essos, because I KNEW you – and that TOWER OF STRENGTH & SUPPORT God gave you in a husband, would “Take care of things”! (I don’t know if you know that Etonde has since told me that, when I rang the bell SO LOUDLY at the gate that EARLY morning and you parted your upstairs bedroom window blinds and saw me standing there with this Mr. Mbah and his “wicked” AFRO right behind me, you wondered whether I had, (at 15), gone and found myself some "garri boy" and caused your sister to “send me packing”! I don’t blame you oh, Aunty! Bad as it would have been, it still would have been better news than the real reason I was standing there! By the way, you did not do badly at all yourself, in the “Chakara Place & Display” department once you came down and heard that news. Your screams got every respectable dog in the whole of Quartier Essos barking like crazy! They must all still be wondering – from Dog Heaven, who this “MY SISTER OH, MY SISTER OH” that you kept wailing about could be! One of the extremely rare times you lost your calm and composure, I might add!
June 30th 1990, you were at that Buea Town Court House before Pa Ndoko, the Mayor himself, and his staff could even get there to see Luma and I append our signatures to our marriage license.
Early January 1991, you were hardly getting any sleep, working tirelessly to take care of the knots and bolts involved in planning and “executing” the church wedding. By the time Luma and I came into town from “THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN” ,(Bertoua), where we were stationed at the time, you – and the other incredible family members we’re both blessed with, had practically everything covered. However, from time to time, and mainly because of “VILLE MORTE” issues, news would come trickling through to me that DIAMAOR was finished at the store, or so-so-and-so had gone to Douala since morning to buy flour and extra "asoebis", and "e neva cam back sotey now so, for dis twelve midnight"! So what did you do? Send a car to get my unsuspecting self over to the CDC BOTA house, and then, WITHOUT BOTHERING TO ASK MY PERMISSION, have my things brought over there, with the announcement that I would be staying right there till January 12th, sheltered and protected from all the wahala about whether or not the “IYO COW-OH” had arrived from Ngaoundéré yet, or if Madam “Wetin Call” had delivered the canopies! Never before or since, have I been SO PAMPERED and just SPOILED ROTTEN!!
August 2011, Papa passed away, and you called and kept calling to comfort us. We came back from Cameroon, and you just went on being your usual caring self, ALWAYS checking on us and reminding us that “GOD IS IN CONTROL”, even though you had health concerns of your own!
I could go on and on and on, but what’s the point? I will never be able to list EVERYTHING you’ve done for me as an individual, and for all 3 families I am directly connected to: The MBONGOs, the MBIWANs and the MONJIMBOs. The remark has often been made, with pleasant surprise, about how close Ebob, Didi and I are. For us, it is NO SURPRISE! We saw firsthand from you and your sisters, what it means to be close, unconditionally loyal, devoted, and above all, GOD FEARING!!! It will be hard for us to cope with your loss, but even harder for The Love Of Your Life, (what a husband!!!!), and your precious children and “membambas”, not to talk of your beloved bear-ye-the-burdens-of-one-another sisters! We all stand firmly on the TRUTH we have always known from ages past to present day:
JESUS DOETH ALL THINGS – this included, WELL, so, Dear Aunty, IT IS WELL WITH OUR SOULS, and WE THANK GOD ALMIGHTY FOR THE IMMENSE BLESSING YOU WERE TO US!
REST IN PERFECT PEACE!
Fondly,
YOUR NIECE, EGBE
