A Tribute to Ugom, the Love of My Life, My Husband, and the Father of Our Daughter

By Chinenye Eze

Where do I start from? How do I compress our 15 years of marriage and 25years of friendship into few pages? What can I ever write that will express what I feel inside? I am yet to get over that feeling of chill that went down my spine and the rude shock that fateful night, a night that has drastically changed the story of my life. “How is it possible?” I asked all night, as the tears continued to flow so freely down my cheeks. Oh death, how can you be so cruel!

What can I ever say about this great man that people do not already know? His deep love and reverence for God and His Church? His gentle care and affection for humanity and constant counsel to many dealing with different issues in life? His total dedication and commitment to his responsibilities at home, church, work and other groups or associations he belonged to? The inestimable love for his family that radiated from him always and caught the admiration of many? Oh death, you have indeed dealt a heavy blow on me!

My love, Ugom, Ejy, you were the perfect husband that any woman would pray for! Apart from your bodily beauty - an embodiment of handsomeness and brains, you were a very beautiful soul, a rare creation of God and a priceless gift to all you connected with. A note I sent with my 2018 Christmas gift read, “All I want for Xmas is You’’! Little did I know that God wanted you more for His Xmas gift, leaving a feeling of emptiness and grief as my 2019 Xmas package! What a great loss to earth as heaven rejoices on gaining an angel!

“What can I ever say about this great man that people do not already know? His deep love and reverence for God and His Church? His gentle care and affection for humanity and constant counsel to many dealing with different issues in life? His total dedication and commitment to his responsibilities at home, church, work and other groups or associations he belonged to? The inestimable love for his family that radiated from him always and caught the admiration of many? Oh death, you have indeed dealt a heavy blow on me!”

Ugom, you were more than a husband; you were my soulmate who understood my personality and accommodated all my excesses so calmly and gently, my best friend with whom I would share the darkest secret of my heart, my English repository that I would always call up to check the correctness of my English before I send that official mail, my ‘William Shakespeare’ who would never miss an opportunity to write those unique and perfect poetic love notes that crowns me a queen in my mind – notes that will form my ‘treasure library’ for life, my solid rock that will always support and encourage me to pursue greater heights and dreams and above all the pillar that upheld our family in prayer and morals; forming our unique prayer pattern, creating our special and unique family prayers, coordinating several novena prayers for special intentions of our family. Ugochinyerem, as you would fondly call me, you have gone ahead too soon than I could ever have imagined and now I feel a deep ache inside which I wonder whether it will ever heal in my lifetime!

15years ago, on this same day, we both said, ‘I Do’. Our catch word for that day was ‘Together Forever’. Standing at your graveside today, remembering those words and pondering over them as we pay our tribute towards your journey home to meet our Creator, I still echo same words, ‘Together Forever’! Our last year’s wedding anniversary featured, ‘Real Love Stories never have endings’. How so true it is, and I still maintain that ‘Ours’ remains my favourite story. Providence has also made it very unique for us such that going forward, I’ll celebrate on same date, both the birth of this rare love and the transition to a greater love, one that even death does not have the power to end! Ugom, what we ‘share’ is unique, rare and priceless and I’ll forever treasure it! Indeed, it’s been a great honour and privilege to be your wife!

Ejy, you lived every moment of your life creating a legacy for your family. You have left indelible footprints that will guide Mandy and I to that beautiful home you have gone to where we will re-unite again as a family. Your legacy lives on and will forever resonate in our lives, keeping your memory alive, forever! In your lifetime you touched so many lives, my prayer is that your death would cause many lives to be changed for good.

The “Good Die Young” an unknown author said, but by dying young, the person stays young in people’s memory and his brightness shines for all time! As Abraham Lincoln would say, “and in the end, it’s not the years in a life, it’s the LIFE in the years”! Wonderful words of inspiration from the Holy Bible I also read, “the souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead…and their going from us, utter destruction, but they are in peace” (Wisdom 3:1-9). Ugom, though your life on earth seems short, I can say with pride that it was a life well lived and I celebrate that life today, my love, to the glory of God!

Our beautiful home here on earth, that we have just built together to our ‘specs’, can never be complete without you Ugom! But Mandy and I are comforted, knowing that you have gone to a better home, from where you will be watching over us! You have always been my ‘Shining Star’, you will continue to shine even brighter as our guardian angel. Healing from your death will take me a lifetime and I’ll forever miss you, but I am determined to live on for our Mandy and the dreams we shared, hoping that those fond memories of you and special moments we shared, which I will forever treasure, will always bring a smile on my lips and give me the strength and courage to face each new day with renewed hope.

You may be physically dead but you remain alive in my memory and will live forever in my heart and so it’s not goodbye Ugom, it’s until I see you again. I love you 2 pieces now and always, Nakupenda!

Nenye (Ugom) – Ugochinyere gi, your Primrose!