by Kola Balogun
Beatrice (Beauty) Okiomoado Kola-Balogun, my wife of twenty-eight years left this sinful world to be with her creator, who loves her better around 9.00 pm on the 18th of August 2020. It was the darkest day of my life; a day I never wished to see! I left the National hospital that day around 1.00 pm since I was not allowed to go into the ward where she was with a view to returning the following morning to continue to hang around as I had done in the past one week since she was admitted into the facility.
On getting home, I called my children to give them update about their mom’s condition – that I spoke with her that Tuesday morning when she told me she wasn’t feeling better.
As it is usual with the family, it was a conference call; I told them how my day was spent at the hospital. We talked about other issues and the next approach towards her medical issues when she is discharged. We talked at length – everyone saying how much we were missing her, especially me, who could hardly do anything on my own without her input.
Meanwhile, there were several calls by the hospital and my General overseer, Rev. W. Okoye requesting me to come to the hospital while I was discussing with the children. Immediately we ended the call and I saw the missed calls, my heart skipped a bit! ‘’What could have happened?’’ I retuned the hospital’s call and was asked to come to the hospital that night. My thoughts ran riot! ‘’How could the hospital who had not allowed me access to her this past four days be calling me to come this night?’’ I reasoned. I refused to believe that the worst had happened! I suppressed every negative thought concerning her. ‘’How would I survive without her?’’ ‘’Where would I start from?’’ These were the questions that were ringing in my head seeking for answers as I drove to the hospital that night.
On getting to the hospital, the Doctor started with telling stories of the frailty and transience of life – ‘’nothing is new under the sun, ….’’ I didn’t know when tears started flowing from my eyes. The long and short of all his sermonizing was: ‘’your wife died about an hour ago at exactly 9.00pm’’! I was dumb founded for minutes – not talking, yet tears were running down my cheeks. ‘’How do I live without my soul-mate?’’ ‘’Where do I start from?’’ These and many more question ran riot in my head all that night.
It’s been one year now and God in His infinite mercies has kept me and my kids. We have become sources of encouragement to each other and we are determined to ensure that we carry on her legacy and keep her memory alive for the rest of our lives. Writing this tribute in her memory after this one year is a little way of expressing my undying love for her.
This one year without her has sent new memories flooding forward. Her life was a blessing and her memory a treasure. I loved her beyond words and miss her beyond measures!
Among the many qualities that endeared her to me was her kind-heartedness and going out of her way to do anything for you once she is fond of you. Since we got married on 28 December 1991 till her demise, she maintained that quality and never for once gave it up at any moment that I know. There was this extra ordinary fondness she had for her eldest brother, chief Charles Adogah SAN. She would rather give up her personal comfort than to disappoint her brother or any of her siblings for that matter. When I noticed that quality in her, I made up my mind never to obstruct her any time she had the obligation to assist or be with anybody, and for this she was always grateful.
So, when she had to travel to the village that weekend, I did not discourage her due to her ill-health. I would not have succeeded even if I tried. It was in fulfilment of a promise she had made to help organize the cooking/feeding aspect of a function in the village. “Madam’’, as I called her, you are not feeling fine and you are still going to embark on this journey?” I asked her. “You know that I had already given my word and he is depending on me to make everything work out successfully, how can I disappoint him at this last minute?” she made the journey and came back still looking frail and weak. She did some tests and it was confirmed that she had malaria and some level of typhoid fever. After taking two different sets of drugs treatment and she did not get better, the Doctor advised we go for injection option. The Doctor said they had discovered that some malaria were drug-resistant in recent times. I believed the doctor because I had the same experience while she was away to the village. She was placed on a three-day injection treatment. To our utter amazement, she did not get better after the injections. It was during one of the nights when she wasn’t feeling better that we had to go to another hospital aside the one where she had been receiving treatment.
The details of our experience at this other hospital is a story for another day. Exactly six days later, my loving wife, my confidante, my ‘mother’ gave in to the cold hands of death! It is exactly a year ago since she left me and the memory of the good times we had are the only consolation I have right now.
I have come to realize that the biggest fear anyone could have is not the fear of death, but the fear of never truly living – being there for others! Touching people’s lives positively and giving them hope in their hopeless situations.
‘Beauty’, my loving wife, lived! She was a quintessence of awe-inspiring impact to everyone who had the privilege of knowing her. She was an organizer, a bridge builder, a mother indeed! Most times, she would be on the phone mediating between siblings, friends and acquaintances till late into the night after I might have slept off. I remember an occasion when I told her that the inventors of GSM must have had her in mind when they embarked on the mission. She would call almost everybody on har contact register some days, including myself while in the office, just to ask after their welfare. A testimony to this fact occurred in December 2020, four months after she had passed when some of her friends in Benin city started calling her line. I had switched off her line that August immediately after her passing and when I switched it on again in December because I needed to retrieve some information from the phone, those calls started coming in. “It is very unlike her to stay for a whole month long without calling to check on us, even when we don’t call her that regularly, we’re really going to miss her soothing words of encouragement” said those her friends when they learnt of her passing.
One quality my wife possessed which I have been missing since her departure is composure! My wife was never in hurry to do anything. In one of our usual discussions one day, – we usually teased each other with our weaknesses and laughed at each other at the end. I told her that night that she always amazed me the way she composed herself calmly in whatever she did. She replied that it was the reason she liked planning ahead. True to her words, just a few days ago, our house help told me that most of the things she bought and stored in the refrigerator that we had been using were exhausted – one year after her passing we were still using ingredients she had stored! She was indeed a rare breed!
Her generosity was unprecedented, she would insist we left change for hawkers and road-side sellers whenever we stopped to purchase items like roast corn, roast plantain or bottled water. “I feel for these people and I wish I had the power to turn around their fortunes – how much would they make from these items they are hawking?’’ She would say. The peak of her generosity was when she requested that we started paying the school fees of our security guard’s children. Our security guard in the village has five children, two in the secondary school and the remaining three in the primary school. She started paying the kids’ school fees herself before informing me; when I asked her why she did that, she replied that it is to prove to me that it is doable, especially now that we are done with paying school fees for our own biological children. We had both agreed that we were going to set up orphanages and help stranded children back to school. We had actually started a programme of help to widows which we tagged “Lifeline”. She spare-headed the programme; every December she would travel to the village to arrange the bags of rice, and other ingredients and items we distributed to widows before Christmas. When she passed, we – my children and I and her younger brother who had been contributing to the programme, decided that we are going to rename the NGO after her. We named it – “Beatrice Ado Kola –Balogun Foundation”. Arrangements were on going and my eldest daughter was coordinating things in Canada, making contacts to relevant agencies. While all these were going on, my brother in-law, Mark, her younger brother said he had a dream where she was asking about the foundation. This is her lot! – doing things well and at the right time. We were able to conclude all arrangements and made the first presentation these month August at the first anniversary of her passing working in collaboration with Women impacting Nigeria, an NGO that touches the lives of widows. (She was compulsively kind-hearted but in ways that weren’t apparent to many people.)
My wife was one of the most brilliant students of the Bible and preachers I’ve ever known. But she was so modest, humble and quiet about her abilities that she didn’t often get the credit or recognition that she deserved. People often said I wrote her sermons whenever she was invited to preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is that my wife didn’t believe in my ability to prepare a good sermon for her. She would sit down and write everything herself! The only thing she would request I assisted her to do was in typing in bold font for easy reading for her, with a serious warning not to change anything from the original manuscript and that I should come back with both – manuscript and typed copy.
Beauty was a rare combination of beauty and brain. A bastion of support, dependable ally, soul-mate and partner of unprecedented standing. Life, truly is not fair; but I dare not give in to the disempowering tyranny of despair. That would tantamount to a disservice to the perpetual optimism that defined Beauty, my loving wife, whose favourite scripture is lamentation 3:37- “Who is her that says a thing and it comes to pass, when God has not commanded it”. I’m consoled by the fact of the above scripture that God had permitted it that she should go and rest in the bosom of her creator.
Once more, I want to use this opportunity to express my gratitude for the barrage of empathy and support I have been receiving from friends, brethren and family for this past one year. Amina Ohunene Francis-Audu (my wife’s gist partner), thank you so much for the delicious vegetable soup you send across often. You have shown that you are a friend indeed and I am sure that she would be proud of you in her new position.
May God almighty reward you and your husband and all those who have been standing by me for this past one year.
Beauty, my love, the memories of your love, sacrifices and affection for me and the kids will remain ever green in our hearts. If truly a person’s quality is measured by what he or she wants to achieve and not what he or she achieved, then, the quality of your personality is unquantifiable. You had those great plans – to touch lives, especially the girl-child! I will always love you. Thanks for the privilege and value of your friendship!
Kola