TRIBUTE TO MY DARLING HUSBAND
My darling husband, my love, my friend, my helper, joy, happiness, my story maker and storyteller. My gister and my defender. I still find it hard to control my mind and the tears rolling down my cheek everyday I remember you are no more. I would never know that I would go to the Teaching Hospital Nnewi with all the efforts for you to be well. I never knew that I would not come back home with you. I never believed it will get to this. God in his infinite wisdom knows why it happened. All I can say is “IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL”.
After all we went through together in life, I thought we will now relax and reap the fruits of our children and our toiling to the glory of God. I never knew it will be like this. God’s ways are never our ways as He knows better.
Ezigbo dim, although I mourn your demise, I am thankful to our good Lord because I know you are in His bosom. I thank God for your faith in Jesus Christ. You lived a life of sacrifice, you preached, you evangelized your whole village. You touched many people’s lives; you are supportive in all angles. You are a strong man always determined, brave and you will always fight for what you believe in. You always stood for the truth in your gentle style and fight for the truth not minding whose ox is gored, hence your name “EZIOKWU BU NDU”.

Your late lovely father gave you all his name in his full name T.C.E.O that is great and proud for you. In 1st Timothy 1:2 and 2nd Timothy 1:2 praphrased - "to Timothy my dearly beloved son, faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord". Indeed, you are faithful, graceful, merciful, and peaceful from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
You are a wonderful husband with a wonderful wife and wonderful lovely children. I am grateful to God for the days the months, the years we spent together were glorious with peace, understanding, love, tolerance, patience etc. is the answer. I thank the Almighty God for how we toiled together and our prayer to see that our wonderful children and others acquired the best education there is. You laboured for their present and future and with God their heart desires were possible for them.
I appreciate God for giving us such wonderful and caring godly children. Thank God for our lovely and godly sons in law, the minsters of God they are so loved, and they are taking good care of us and others. I am also grateful to God for our beautiful, lovely, and caring daughters in law and our sweet grandchildren. May the Lord continue to lift them higher and higher forever. They are missing you, your gist, story maker and teller, your funny cartoon and smiling to them.
Thank God for your brothers and sisters they so loved you and they took good care of you. They are missing you and your love for them. The leaders and members of St. Stephens Church are missing you.
I will miss you terribly my darling! I take consolation in what St Paul said in 2nd Timothy 4 verse 7-8 : You fought a good fight, you have finished your course, you kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for you a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give you on that day.
Ezigbo dim oma, I love you, but God loves you best. You are already with your creator. I am only consoled with the fact that I will meet you in heaven on the last day.
Adieu my darling, adieu Eziokwu Bu Ndu, till we meet to part no more.
Your beloved wife. Blessed Reggy Uche Okoye.

I miss you so so much Daddy, I love you so so much, I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that I will no longer hear you call me Chii with so much affection. No one else can fill your space… I have put off writing anything since that day, still so vivid in my mind. I remember my conversation in prayer with the Lord, begging to meet you alive, to say goodbye and even be with you as you transitioned… I realized that evening that it was not to be, I remember letting go and asking God for His will to be done. I knew you had gone before I got the phone call – it did not make hearing the confirmation any easier.

Daddy… I know very well your time had come, I know you were ready, I know you were not afraid as you knew where you were golng to… It helps but it still hurts so much…

We planned to come and sit with you, to hear your stories, to laugh and see your twinkling eyes – your “hidden” expression of pride in us. 

You were and still are my super hero. I loved you so much Daddy, I still can't believe you are gone. I have so many precious memories... I wanted to make so many more especially with your grandchildren, my children who did not have the opportunity to know you well living so far away. I told them so much about you, so often that they were really looking forward to our planned trip for summer 2020, but Covid struck and cancelled our trip.

You modelled truth, integrity, hard work, community, love for peace, love for the less privileged, love for education (you opted out voluntarily but promoted it for every child – you drummed the importance of education into us from early on), accountability, discipline, humility, culture and tradition… to name a few. You left a huge void Daddy, like a part of me has been torn off….

This reality is hard to accept, I am trying because I know you would want me to move on, to remember the fond memories, your sacrifices too numerous to name, your labour of love, your forthrightness, your commitment to good and God.

Rest on my handsome, genuinely loving Daddy... till we meet again in glory where there will be no more pain, sorrow, grief, pain and illness, where we will behold the beauty and glory of God.