Happy birthday to my darling aunty Pat!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! What are you up to today? What love-related activity are you going to partake in ‘in the name of love’? Huh? What did you say? Ok, whatever you do, let it be stuff you can defend before God o!

What am I doing today? Nothing extra to be honest, according to Pinky and the Brain, “same thing we do every night, try to take over the world”, lol. I’ve got quite a bit of work to get through, next week is pretty busy so the more items I can tick off my to-do list today, the easier next week will be. #Hustleface

I’m also going to Jesus House tonight with my girl Toks, looking forward to that! Apparently this branch of the Redeemed Christian Church of God have a 24 hour praise event going on and what better way to spend the evening than in my Father’s House?  Plus I haven’t been to Jesus House since Christmas of 2010, so it’d be nice to fellowship there again. Yeah, so we’re going to go.

I’m also going to have lunch at Jamie’s Italian too, fingers crossed I can get the exact table we got this day, last year.

See, it is/was my awesome aunty Pat’s birthday, and it was just the both of us in the house so she asked me to suggest someplace we could go. We had a proper party planned over the weekend (caterer and everything) but she just felt like both of us should do something together. And since we were up to our eyeballs in Chinese, I suggested Italian. And so off to Bluewater we went. I will never forget it.

We ordered our starters, and when the mains came, she said, “is this it”? Lol! We ate, I was stuffed, she was not, so we ordered desserts.

Our bill came to just under £80 and when she paid, she said, “we should have used this money to buy perfume or clothes, stayed in the house and eaten our food jor! I’m still hungry!” Bless her.

We laughed, and went home. I’d given her the new DKNY perfume (aunty LOVED perfumes) – I don’t remember the name but it was the green of the 2013 apple series they did – she loved it! Thing is, aunty loved whatever she was given. Even if it was beneath her (and she’d never make you feel that way), she would accept it with thanks and one of her very big smiles!

Later that night she begged me to make semovita for her. After she ate, she said, “yes, now person know say im don chop!!” We both dozed off soon after.

Aunty. It’s already been 7 months since you went on to glory, and 8 months since the last time I saw you. I miss you so much, and I love you forever.

Happy birthday aunty!

 

 

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Four months on, still feels like yesterday…

My darling Aunty Pat,

Four months ago today you were just about gone, breathed your last at 6.55pm. And ascended to be with God, far above cancer, pain, and everything else that plagued you.

I miss you o, Booski and I talk about you every day. Seems like it was just yesterday we were planning Christmas of 2012, shopping like crazy for everyone in Abuja, even though you were fresh from surgery. That’s one beautiful thing about you, you always put people before yourself. Always, you didn’t even have to think about it, selflessness came to you naturally.

A lot has changed since you left, makes me miss you even more. Stuff is changing, and there’s so much I wish I could talk to you about, so much to gist, laugh, and watch you put on your fake stern face for. Ha ha, my precious aunty, one in ten million. There’s so much to catch up on!

But you’re gone aren’t you? You are. I remember asking my father on the day of the funeral if you could wake up and he said no, too much time had passed. I didn’t believe him (just so you know), somehow I kept expecting you’d stand up during the church service. Would have been grand!!

I miss you aunty. I miss you every single day. And I’ll never forget you. Not even possible.

Sleep on. I love you loads.