Vincent Nzemeke
There was no tweet to announce my mother’s passing. Like Chadwick Boseman, the hero of the Black Panther movie, Roseline Adaubulu Nzemeke fought valiantly against cancer as it ravaged her lungs, dulled her beauty, and incapacitated her limbs until she died on August 18, 2020, at a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria.
The tweet announcing Boseman’s passing after a similar battle against Cancer garnered millions of likes and re-tweets. But my mother’s death was confirmed with an early morning text from my brother Gerald, who was at her side and watched helplessly as life eased out of her. There were no likes or re-tweets for a text that broke every heart in my family.
My mother was not a movie star. She didn’t have a Twitter profile and she had just a handful of friends – mostly church members on her rarely used Facebook page. But she was a hero in many ways. Everyone called her Mama Care because she truly loved and cared for the people in her life. She was a devout Christian, loyal wife, sweet mother, and a doting grandmother.
She carried herself with dignity without being haughty and had a permanent smile that bellied all the pains she felt even when her condition worsened. She was also faithful to her friends and kind to
strangers.
Boseman was the strong and resilient king of Wakanda in a movie. My mother was all that and more in real life for the 61 years she lived. The faith and fortitude she displayed as she confronted all of life’s adversity was unrivaled. She was an affectionate disciplinarian and a strong hand that guided rather than scold.
As a young boy, I didn’t like the sound of Ikechukwu as my middle name. I preferred Emmanuel because it was fancy and had just 8 letters. But my mother insisted that I learn to spell it because it was the second name on my birth certificate. We went back and forth for about a week until one day when she insisted that I spell it out loud before I ate lunch. After three futile attempts, my mother came to my rescue just so I could join my siblings who were already eating.
She suggested that I break it down into three syllables. Ike-chu-kwu. I did and never forget how to spell my name again. Such was the dedication of my mother. She was our first teacher. She made all her children do tasks that were not always fun but important. Rooms had to be swept and tidied because a dirty house reflects on your character as a human being. Bedsheets and curtains had to be washed because cleanliness is next to godliness. Cobwebs in room corners had to be removed with a broom and dusty tables and electronic devices had to be wiped daily because you should not inhale dust in your own house. My brothers and I can cook because my mother taught us that no man is too important to cook his own food when she made us help her in the kitchen.
Boseman battled cancer and was still able to make movies because he lived in the United States. My mother didn’t have that luxury. Perhaps, if she lived in a country that was not as badly governed as Nigeria, she may have survived. But Nigeria is a monster that feeds on the blood of her own children. The doctors in Nigeria’s private and government-funded hospitals treated everything but cancer. We paid for myriads of tests and x-rays but none of them could detect the very thing that ailed my mother. One time at a renowned government-owned hospital in Lagos, the doctors sucked buckets of mucus mixed with blood from her lungs for about a week after making us pay for beds, gloves, surgical masks and a fan for the ward where she was being
treated. The test that eventually confirmed her to the status of a cancer patient was done in South Africa and it took three weeks to get the results.
When the chemotherapy process was explained to her, my mother took the news with aplomb like she did everything else. Her body was frail, but her spirit blossomed with contagious optimism. Every time we spoke on the phone, her resolve to live and fight for another day was never in doubt. But Cancer takes no prisoners and two chemo sessions couldn’t save my mother from its lethal claws.
To lose a mother is a painful experience, but to lose her at a time when international travel is a nightmare doubles the grief. I and my brother Victor who lives in Canada watched our mother’s funeral on video calls because Nigerian authorities have set a litany of harebrained conditions that must be met by visitors from other countries due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our eyes puffed with tears as the church sang and offered prayers at her grave. I prayed for her too. The greatest consolation in this period of pain is the knowledge that my mother lived a good life. The families and friends who travelled from near and far to attend the funeral attest to that. She was a darling to many people and now she has gone where angels go. Rest in peace Mommy!
Vincent Nzemeke, Houston Texas.
