Lolo White, My Mum My Everything.
5 min read
My mum was everywhere until she wasn’t just like at first she was nowhere until she was. The absence of before I knew she existed, nothing. Now, the absence of shrouds everything. Nothing washes away the void where she used to be.
The first memory I have of my mum was similar to her last. I remember using a medical set my mum bought for me when I was little to treat any injury or blemish on her body. I remember mixing powder with water and rubbing it on her injury and placing my toy stethoscope on her legs and telling her she will be fine. She would always laugh and carry me up and embrace me and echo her plans to receive free surgery if I grow up to be a doctor.
I did grow up to be a doctor, but what’s the point, if I couldn’t even save her when she needed it the most.
I was one of those children who loved late night snacking: consequently, my odd-hour craving made me believe my mother never slept. This is because every night when I woke up and went down for a quick bite she was always there, in the living room, watching her favourite shows.
She would pray every midnight till 1 am, then proceed to watch her favourite Korean shows. When I was little, it was friends then one tree hill ‘desperate housewives.
She would always ask me to join her, which I would gladly do [except for Korean movies, I would always object and run back upstairs).
One day became two and two became a habit and my mum and I watched movies for most of our lives.
We banded over ideas, shared the same humor, had the same thoughts and dreamed the same dreams.
It was easy for me to dream, because we dreamt together. My mum was and is my secret weapon, and I was her ‘star boy’ and her’ Dawn’.
She was the proverbial virtuous woman and even more, she was funny, witty and beautiful. How glad my father was that he made the right choice despite their marriage being one of the many normal traditional marriages of their time! He would often make comments like “In my next life, you will still be the one I will marry. She would always tell me stories of how my father, courted her and her parents and how he took the “udara” she was saving, the first time he met her. A true nollywood love story. She was so pissed with him after he took the “udara” that she married him. Looking back, I’m so proud of the loving home and drama free house my parents built.
My mum was a banker, a baker and a lover. She would always tell us the story of how she left the banking industry and put her children 1st. She believed in bonding by presence. A career woman who found a way to raise her kids and love her husband unconditionally.
I don’t remember any visiting day, my mum wasn’t there for me. She picked me from school every day and even still found time to go to fashion school, own few businesses on the side.
My mum could speak 5 languages: English, French, Spanish, Igbo and Yoruba. But more importantly she could speak all the love languages.
She was a gift giver, a master in quality time, and her words of affirmation remain templates etched into my mind till I die.
She was a writer. Something we both shared. A fighter and a believer.
My mum kept giving, till she could give no more. Her heart was mine and mine hers. She had an inherent love of music much to Dad’s never-ending frustration, I might add! We share the same taste, like most things in my life, can trace its beginning and depth to her influence. As an adult, she became my best friend, adviser and confidant. Her greatest quality was to encourage me to make the best of everything and to face problems head on. She was a proud woman who believed that there was no obstacle that couldn’t be overcome.
Her nickname -Lolo White was given to her by her father my grandfather, because she was to him what I was to her: a best friend!
Mum has always been my support, strength and comfort when times have been tough. I don’t know how I will cope without her -it leaves a massive hole in my life. But I will draw strength from the things she taught me and live by the words from Desdemona that my mother always quoted: “Accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can”.
On the day of my grandmum’s burial, she told me ‘I don’t know if I can fix your broken heart, but you can take mine because it’s already yours.”
My first day at school in the university, she said, “don’t forget who you are, this is only part of the journey, not the destination.”
Her mantra was to keep moving, no matter what, everything else is just a distraction.
I hate the fact that our journey together halts here. I’m in so much pained. I’m devastated, heartbroken!
I know I’ll see her again, I know she’s in a much better place.
Not the years in your life, but the life in your years. My mum was a happy woman. She lived a good life. I’m so proud of her.
Lolo White, such a beautiful name! Such a beautiful woman!! An even better mum and a generational friend!!!
I know no one wants to lose a parent, but to call Frances Nkechi Austin- Agbahiwe, my mum would be just scratching it from the surface, she was everything to me: My best friend; My guardian angel; My first love; My mum; My heart; My lolo White.
Adieu, until we meet to part no more!!!
Dr Austin Dawn Austin-Agbahiwe.
(1st Son).
