By Othello B. Garblah
They say life is a journey, and we are just strangers passing through. We may not be guaranteed a tomorrow, but we are promised to live a fulfilling life if we walk on the right path.
So, it was when the death news of my mother hit me on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, it pears my heart so hard. But she was just here for the Christmas Holidays, and none of us saw this coming.
Born Suetta Kpoyour, she would soon become a Bryant and, for the most part, affectionately called SB by her closest friends.
Later, she will change to be called Suetta Davies. Yes, that is how she was known to be before her untimely death on March 12, 2024.
Ms. Davies was a true believer. She trusted God to the end. She was always willing to be there and stand up for the name of God. She never compromised her belief and could tell that men can tell you this, but God has the final say in all. Even on her dying bed, she refused to accept that she had cancer and that it had spread through her brain and the rest of her body.
Whenever I called to check on her during her last days, she would often tell me in her slurring voice, “Othello, don’t worry, papa, God is healing me.”
It all started about 12 years ago when she was first diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, a condition she refused to accept and never once mentioned by name. She always said, “The thing the people say I have, I don’t have it.”
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However, two years later, she would go on to undergo the first painful process of Chemotherapy, a 20th-century form of treatment developed by Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) based on the advice of family and friends.
Chemotherapy was not originally intended as a cancer treatment, but it has gone on to be one form of treatment that provides a 50-50 chance of life and death for the patient.
My mother survived the first treatment because she was healthy at the time and would go on to reach out to many. In San Antonio, Texas, where she lived for over 20 years, she helped many settle in by hosting them in her home. She was not discriminatory. Her desire to help cut across nationalities (Nigerians, Ghanaians, East Africans, Hispanics, etc.), and she enjoyed it.
On one occasion, I remember calling her San Antonio’s unknown Ambassador because she wanted to lure friends and family to move to San Antonio. Whenever I called her from Africa and heard a stranger’s voice in the home, I was never surprised.
She was such a sweet person who was willing to help with her last. I could not get over how far she was willing to go to help someone.
She would often call back home, sending me a list of people to help with specific amounts, and I would ask in return-rally. Did you give me money to keep? And she would tell family members, “Don’t be afraid of him, just go to his house, he will give you the money you want.” I could understand her, though, because she wanted me to reflect on her.
When family members turned on me, saying I was not relating to them, she always stood up to my defense: “You people can’t blame him for not relating to you all because he never knew any of you while growing up.”
During her last visit here in December, she made many requests for the kind of African food she wanted to eat, and when I bought the ingredients, she only prepared them for us.
When I asked why, you gave me such a hard time for something you won’t eat. She will reply, “It’s the same hard time you gave me.”
I remember, while living in Ghana, on a Saturday, for example, she would bring out the dirty laundry on the porch to wash while at the same time preparing to bake. Only two of us were in the house. She would ask me to help out mix the flour and I would reply I am busy typing out a story, only because i didn’t want to do it.
She would complete the washing and bake the cake. Upon completion, she would come running into my room, asking me to taste it. And before you know it, I would have eaten half of it. She would only stir at me and call me greedy and lazy while only hoping that I would end up marrying a very strong woman.
Her departure has left a void. She will surely be missed. She was a mother, a friend, a reconciler, and a counselor. Rest in Peace, Mama
