Today’s Tears for Timi—Doris Favor Esemuze

Timi’s demise…Shocking, to say the least.
Timi…hmmm…I was shocked to my very roots. I feel anything I said will be inadequate. What really can I say? What? Even though death is what we must all pass through as mortals, it always shocks us to bits.
We three lived together at the New PG Hall: Uzo, Timi and I. And we grew quite close; we were practically living in the same room. My room was our meeting point. We were always together. We slept on the same beds, sang together, studied together, danced together, laughed together, cooked together, ‘gisted’ together, went to church together, prayed together, argued together, shopped together. It was fun. We were sisters.
I particularly remember a track from a CD by Lionel Ritchie that we consistently danced, wriggled, jiggled and sweated to. It belonged to Uzo. But who cared? It belonged to the three of us. We played it day, night and night and then, day! It was titled Angel. Timi was indeed an Angel in so many ways… she hardly raised her voice. She was in touch with her realities. She was well aware of her imperfections, her mortality, and of God’s divinity.
We were an odd group; we had different dispositions and temperaments: Uzo from the East, I from the South South and Timi, from the Niger Delta. To us, it just didn’t matter. We were just so cool.
Timi’s voice. That voice. It’s almost unbelievable I won’t hear the soft broadcasting voice anymore. No more will she gently but insistently make her point. No more. Hmmm…
Timi was a lady through and through and she kept trying to make ladies out of Uzo and me. She kept telling us about finesse and decorum. She told us to be ladies, again and again.
Timi loved our Lord Jesus Christ. We fasted together, prayed together, and shared the Word of God together. She was one very sincere Christian, who though, was not perfect as a human being, loved the Lord with a perfect heart. Timi loved life, but she loved the Lord even more. She didn’t compromise her worship of her Lord.
Timi loved people. One phrase I remember Timi saying often was “I love family”. And one of her favourite scriptures was “God places the solitary in families”. Interestingly, Timi’s passing helped me come to terms with my Dad’s death. He passed on in January soon after I came to Namibia, Southern Africa. It was horrible and it’s been very difficult for me. I kept grieving for a long time. It was just recently, in Timi’s death I was able to reconcile the fact that my dad was over 70, compared with Timi, who was in her prime. It was only then, I was able to let go of the pain. Hmmm… Life.
Timi was not perfect, because Timi was human. However the Timi I knew loved the Lord.
Timi was my friend and Sister- in- Christ. One of the questions she asked me in class one day was if I was born again. I was. I don’t know if that is why we soon became fast friends. Good friends, we were.
Today, I mourn a friend who was “closer than a sister”. I mourn my friend, with whom I shared and discussed life. I mourn a friend with whom I worshipped my Creator. Even though I mourn now, I trust that one day, in the fullness of time, we will meet again at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, God who is Lord of all. The tears are just for today.
Today, it’s Timi. Tomorrow, it can be anybody. That is the lot of man. Timi has done her part. We must do ours. We must seek God’s purpose for our lives and pursue it. Then can it be said we walked this earth, and not in vain. After all the conclusion of the matter is that the purpose of “man is to fear God and keep His commandments”. God keep us all.