A Tribute to Mummy

Mummy, I am tasked with capturing the essence of who you are in a few paragraphs.
Try as I might, to pinpoint some specific memories or sweet anecdotes which manage to showcase all your attributes, I come up short. Instead I am met with a depth of emotion and was there a harder task than the description of the intangible – of what is felt?

Loved is the only feeling I can attempt to describe. It is the warm, comforting certainty of the sunrise in the morning, your love for me. A deep-rooted truth, like an age-old adage well and truly known. I walk about life with the confidence that you love me.

They say God’s love can be likened to a Mother’s love. It is through your love Mummy, that I have been able to comprehend this. You have loved me since before I was born. Your love abounds and stretches so far that it encloses not just me, Dami, Papa and Daddy but countless others. Your love for your Parents, Siblings, Nieces and Nephews. Your love for your church members, your friends, your colleagues, your students and your employees was evident in your every action. You truly embody the word of God in 1 John 3:18, which says “Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through loving deeds”. You showed love in giving your time, energy, resources and home without a second thought. The countless pick-ups and drops offs, the endless house guests, the infinite prayers of intercession and the innumerable thoughtful gifts.

Mummy, you not only showed me what the unconditional, never-ending love of God looks like, but you encouraged me to demonstrate it too. In sharing my belongings, my time and my possessions with others. Thank you for showing me what the love of Christ is. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Thank you for the gift of a happy childhood. I am so glad that, as I mentally unwrap the decades which make up my early years and adolescence I am confronted with pleasant memories. Playing outside, the joy of cousins, friends and church members, toys and gadgets innumerable. The travels you and Daddy provided over the years, the theme parks we visited, the summers of endless fun, all sheltered within the values you taught us. I remember how you’d collect Tomisin and I from Primary school and gleefully ask us to “pick the right pocket or the left!” and whichever pocket we picked you’d pull out a fistful of sweets and chocolates to our delight! The motorway road trips you’d turn into a fun adventure, where we’d imagine we were on rollercoasters, squealing with amusement. Thank you for encouraging us in our academics and our extra-curricular activities. Thank you for finding the time, energy, money and connections to nurture all our interests – violin lessons, rugby practice, football games, swimming classes – the list is endless. Thank you that I can look back at the big things and little things and smile.

Very early on in life I had to make peace with the fact that you couldn’t just be “my Mummy”, though you birthed only three, you are mother to so many! You have raised us all with care, guidance, Godly counsel and an abundance of love. Not everyone has the privilege of enjoying time with their grandchild, I am incredibly grateful that you and Oluwamayowa were able to know and love one another. You are a cherished friend to a multitude! You were always able to somehow find the time and energy to be present in and pour into the lives and so many. I am grateful for all the wonderful Aunties and Uncles that have become a part of my life as a result of your friendship.

Thank you for the gift of your friendship. You are the friend that shares my every sadness and success. The first one I call when someone at work is mean to me, also the one I go to when I need to pick out an outfit and the one I look to when I need to strategise over career choices. Thank you for growing with me, for making the effort to understand me. For telling me the truth – even at times when I didn’t want to hear it. You said to me, more than once “I am your mother, I will tell you the truth!” Thank you for those truths, I may not have given them their value in the moment but I realised in time. Thank you for covering me with prayer before every test, exam and interview. Thank you for championing me, for extoling all my achievements, bursting with pride over me and my accomplishments. No dream was ever too big, no desire unattainable. Thank you for being a shining example in your career, a maverick in your profession and someone I can gaze up to and be inspired by. You and I would joke that we were the “Doctor Mosuros” in the family and had racked up more letters after our names than the boys (sorry Daddy, Dami and Papa!)

Thank you for the gift of my faith in God. You gifted it to me not just through your patient and constant teaching of the Word. But also, by waking Dami, Papa and I singing “arise and shine and give God the glory!” and declaring over us that we are blessed and highly favoured, that we are taught of the Lord and great is our peace as we sleepily clambered out of bed. Your faith in God was demonstrated through your every word and action, right down to the very core of who you are. Thank you for the early morning family prayers and praise and for the late-night Bible studies. Thank you for making our home a dwelling place for the Holy-Spirit and a palace of praise to God. You led our church, as Priest and Mother and everything in-between! Encouraging me and my brothers, to serve the Lord with the same zeal, dedication and love you had. You lived the word of God in Romans 12:11 – Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion towards him boiling hot! Radiate with the glow of the Holy Spirit and let Him fill you with excitement as you serve Him.

Thank you for personifying God to me. How could I understand that God is steadfast, if you had not been the principled rock that you are? Thank you for not letting me get away with an inch! You would chastise, with love and make it clear that the Godly standards which I had to meet were not like those of the world. You are my moral compass, the one I always look to when charting my course. Thank you for fostering in me and my siblings the virtue of righteousness.

How would I know that God is kind, if your generous selflessness was not evident in every decision you made? You gave of yourself to all of those you knew and even those you didn’t. You effortlessly exemplified the word of God in Timothy 1:5, which says “For we reach the goal of fulfilling all the commandments when we love others with a pure heart, a clean conscience, and sincere faith”. So I know, without a shadow of a doubt that you have wholeheartedly fulfilled all the commandments.

How would I know that God is a strong tower, if I had not run and hidden behind you when obstacles inevitably arose on my path? Thank you for being my rock of support for everything from the trivial annoyances to the big challenges. I remember calling you in tears after I failed my driving test, you immediately came and scooped me up saying “Abeke, don’t worry oh, you will pass next time!” and I did. Thank you for answering every phone-call, listening to me cry about whatever and whomever and ministering words to soothe my heart, bolster my spirit, re-build my confidence and lead me towards a solution. Thank you for being my haven and my covering.

Even in your affliction you continued to exemplify Christ. You faced every day with such grace and a peace which transcends our understanding. Just like the word of God in Hebrews 12:12, “so be made strong even in your weakness by lifting up your tired hands in prayer and worship”; you would raise your weary hands in worship and praise to God. Thank you for living a life of faith in God, to your final breath and beyond. Although this sickness ravaged your fleshly body, you did not allow it to tamper with your mind and your heart. You inspired us all with the strength and tenacity of your faith. The day before you had to go back into hospital for the final time we spoke on the phone and you said you felt so weak. When we prayed together, you said “mo ni igbagbo” [Yoruba: translation – I have faith/I believe], you often said this during the course of these last few months. Like the word of God in Hebrews 10:35 which says “so do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you”. You clung to your precious faith in God. Now I know you are rejoicing with the Saints in Heaven, reaping your reward, fully whole and perfect.

Mummy, I have no earliest memory of you; this is because my life began with waking up to you and knowing your face. You are the first and the constant in my life, I am not myself without you because who I am is inextricably entwined with you. Words cannot convey the awful gravity of what it is to contemplate a life without you, let alone try to live it. My heart physically aches with sadness. I grieve your absence today and your absence tomorrow and in all the days and weeks and years to come. I grieve the memories we never got to make and the promises I made to you which went unfulfilled. To know I no longer have you here, as my covering, as my intercessor, as my counsellor, as my guide, as my Mother makes this loss unbearably hard to accept. I still need you, for so much.

Mummy, you are the most wonderful person I know. The strongest, most beautiful, wise, kind, open-handed, generous and truly loving. You are in a class all by yourself. A remarkable woman with a heart of pure gold. I will forever be in awe of the ease and grace with which you gave so much of yourself, how you served the Lord and others with such humility, compassion and integrity. You are the quintessential proverbs 31 woman and indeed your children rise up and call you blessed.

I cannot wait until we are reunited once more. All my love, forever and ever. Your one and only daughter, your Abeke.

Anjolaoluwa Mosuro