Life in Stage ~ My Story~My Life~My Man...

Dear Readers,

We are going on a journey with this story so stay excited and enjoy the story line. This article features the story of Joan Kelechi Uzo Amobi. It is a story of woman that lost her husband to the sickness of Cancer and her journey to healing and how she dealt with it all. She reveals the journey behind her story, her life and where she is today......

This story is one you cannot resists....

Joan Kelechi Uzo is the 4th female child born to the Family of Uzo...A family made up  of a hardworking Father, a supportive Mother and six children. She has two older sisters, an older brother and two younger twins sisters.
Her Story Begins:

Where should I start, I have so many to tell. I will start with how I met my soul mate Jonathan Chukuemaka Amobi. So.. I was 18 when I actually first saw him not talking to him but saw him. Jonathan as he is often called is a personal driver to my dad. He practically drives him everywhere, and from the information I have  gathered before actually talking to him, I knew he was 23, a graduate with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a personal driver. I only knew this from how dad brags about how hardworking he is and he is intention of saving  to go back to University to attain his Masters. He only says this to drive my siblings nut and make them see how useless their career path are compared to a common driver as he puts it.

I also know that Dad actually loves him and really loves him.. I will tell you why. In all the days of anyone hired to work for our Dad none of them has ever ever ever been allowed to sit on the Family dining table to eat dinner or anything for that matter. He makes sure the house helps etc know their stand in the family home and respect should be exercised. Hence,  the only place in the Family home they are allowed to come in contact with is the visitor's lounge where they stand on the passage to pass the message to the personal maids who will then leave a note at the note box close to the family sitting room. If Dad sees the note and wants to discuss further he will summon them to his personal office outside the family home, although in the same compound, you cannot enter the family home without permission or an emergency. The only ones that do enter the family homes are the personal maids that collect dirty clothes to wash. The rest of the chores we all do it.

In fact when I was 11, Dad changed the rules, personal maids where only allowed to collect the dirty clothes from  a  room outside the Family home  labelled wash room, where all the children will have to personally drop all their dirty laundry and label with their names to ensure no mistakes are made. At this time, Dad bought modern washing machines from abroad thus, made life easier for the personal maids. Besides, he is a military man with strong views on raising the children with firm hands and he will constantly remind us the reason why we have made maid is only  because they need the money for food, clothes etc  and he is employing them to provide for them and offer an alternative life. Hence, we should not take them for granted and assume they are slaves and around to please us.. In his words "the era of slavery is over, so make sure you treat them all with respect, if you break this rule, you will become the house help for a month whilst the house help will take your place.  And yes, he is not lying, he meant it. Our  2nd born tried it once and was greatly punished, she had no choice but to swap places with the house help called Amaka. She called Amaka a bastard when she did not  bring her ironed clothes on time, but she didn't know my Dad was around listening to his news. He heard the word bastard from afar and thought who to himself "what on earth" according him. He summoned both of them and asked what happened Amaka was already crying her eyes out and told of my sister Mabel and how rude she has always been to her. Dad did not even argue too much he just said you know the rules Mabel take your position now.

Since the incident we were all so aware never to treat our house maid or assistance as we often call them with disrespect. Like Dad said, they are only assisting us and are getting paid to better their lives. So in fairness, we had large number of prospective employees who wanted to work for Dad because they knew he treated his staff with respect and fairness and same was required of them. Word got around so fast, every house maid always came back to thank Daddy for making their lives better and anyone that knew about our Dad sort of respected us more  because we weren't spoilt rich kids (so they thought).

Back to my point, so you see from my Jonathan entering our family home showed he was very special to Dad. He always used Jonathan as an an example to demonstrate the importance of being ambitious and hardworking and starting from the lowest to get to the top.

I saw Jonathan for the first time in our dinning table and you should have seen my reaction. He was actually on the table, eating too and drinking our drinks... That has never happened as far as am aware, I looked well enough before making my reaction known, then  I saw Dad, Mum and Jonathan eating at the table and laughing about something. Just as well, we all knew amongst the kids there is now competition, Dad has a new favourite...

I will quickly tell you about my siblings before getting to Jonathan story...

Pls stay tuned for the Next Series....

God is love and Love on others too...

The Day He said Mama Part 2

Fast forward 3 years later, so much beautiful things have happened between myself  and Abraham. Getting to know him as brought nothing but joy, happiness, gladness into my heart. Although, we have been through our fair share of rocks, I have no doubts that God has been encouraging us,  because with every storm we have been through has come better and bigger solutions with determination  and boldness to fight and excel.

 In three years,  I have become a friend, a confidant, a sister, a mother, an encourager, a family and most importantly a wife. Our bond has grown from strength to strength and we are still growing.  Just in case you were wondering if those kids were his, they weren't. This is the story behind it.
A.B. kids are adopted from his cousin Kunle.  At a point, Kunle's marriage was falling apart, A.B. encouraged him to take a vacation with  his wife whilst their kids were staying at A.B's parents house.

Kunle took his advice and left his kids at the care of A.B and his parents whilst he made effort to save his marriage. Although, the holiday was  fabulous  and both made progress to work on their marriage during their   time away, things were looking up and the advice paid off (Kunle updated A.B when he called to ask about the kids welfare).

 But,  a tragedy struck, a tragedy that changed the lives of A.B, his cousin's children, the whole family forever. On their way back from the holiday, an accident on the motor way  caused  both couple to suffer serious health damages.  Despite, the help and support provided by the doctors, family were informed that Kunle and his wife  will be on supported machine for the rest of their lives.  It was a painful decision to make but they knew they had to let them go to rest.
This happened 5 years ago, it was a tough time for him because he blamed himself for the death of both beautiful people.

However, it did not stop there, A.B. made a decision to be a parent to both kids and being a parent was the only he could ensure he was there for them always.  Besides, he  knew how Kunle his closest cousin was proud of his kids and how he loved them, and A.B knew he was the only he could trust to replicate that care and love. This was how he fought the battle of fostering and adopting the children despite the odds and the negatives from law, family and friends. Most painful thing was dealing with the pain of also  losing his fiance at the time, who was suppose to stick up for him and be there. He truly indeed went through a journey and  his trust in God helped him to overcome, as he got all the strength, motivation, help, support etc only  from  lvoing and trusting in God.  I love my God even more  for keeping my A.B happy and content despite the trails. We been married few months now and I am a living testimony, I am  more than blessed. The joy of being a new mummy  to the kids makes me more  happy and I make  effort through the grace of God to be the best mom to them and more.

I once asked A.B. what he saw in me to ask me out and be his wife, and his response was, you would love me and my baggage and you would not judge me. I was like is that all, am sure there is more to me than that and he said well, u were my wife and I just knew it within me. I know they are so many reasons he married me, although he would put the kids first before his feeling. I think his aim was to do right by the kids and kids gave him thumps up and it has always been thumps up since.

FAST Forward 3 years  after our marriage.

I am proud to say we have been blessed with a  beautiful baby boy called Joseph, he is absolutely adorable and he has cousin Kunle eyes,. my cute lips and my eyebrows, but has  his daddy ears,  hands, legs and feet. He is definitely going to be a strong man just like his dad.

 Joseph just like most babies, cry and whinge, and I absolutely love every minute of it because I adore babies. I never get tired of pampering him, rocking him to bed, waking up by his side, feeding him and changing him,  but I cant be selfish I have to share him with his dad too.
A.B loves changing him into sport clothes, and love playing aeroplane with him, lifting him up to the sky just like he does with most kids we know. He adores his son and he is still a perfect husband and a dad to our three gorgeous children.

Joseph nick name is J,  I noticed when J was 18 months,  his speech was not clear and he found it difficult to speak clearly compared to other kids. I told my family about this and everyone said he will come true that all kids are different. But deep down, I knew something was not right, I told hubby about my issues, he reassured and we decided to see a specialist. I believe in God,   and as usual , I exercised my faith and  communicated my concerns to him and I believed him for spiritual, emotional, mental, physical support and direction.  Despite the fears of the unknown,  I kept on holding to this verse in the bible " Mark 11 vs 23-24. I also knew whatever the specialist said, I would hold on to Matthew 19 vs 26.  Myself and Hubby still had our faith and we said our prayers including the children too.

The report was confirmed that J  officially has a condition that  hinders his speech ability causing it to be difficult for him to alter any words. In essence, he might not be able to speak, although he makes sounds, he cannot speak. It been 2 months now and I still do not know how to react to the response and tests, we have been told about all sorts of help available and support there are for him to lead a normal life. However, the pain of not hearing my own son speak and call me mama hurts more than anything. But I still put my fears before God and deal with everything  by his grace.

Six Years Later.
 Our marriage is still standing and we have another addition to the family  baby Zoe, she has the rosiest cheeks, she is light in complexion like me and has A.B. gorgeous eyes. She is two years old now and her brother  J, is almost 8. It is busy in our house today,  as we are preparing for  the celebration of A.B. grandma who is turning 90. Wow, that is massive mark, she absolutely adores all her grand and great-grand children and we all love her.
 A.B and myself are still very much in love and   I thank God for him everyday because he has done all he said he would do as a husband. There were time in the past, I didn't think I could cope with J situation,  constantly  seeing everyone in the play ground communicating  but not my J, brings tears and pain to my heart. A.B. has always been encouraging me and encouraging us, He would keep his own pain to listen to how I felt, and I knew he was hurting too but we kept on smiling. Although,  J's older siblings could not understand at first but once they did, they were so protective of J and made sure he felt among no matter what. This made life much easier and with the determination and support from the family and God we are living a normal life and making the most of it.

Back to Grandma birthday preparation, we wanted Mama as we call her to have the best birthday so we suggested  all the great-grand children should  do something special for their Mama. I was in charge of organising that bit and I made sure all the great-grand kids did something truly special. Some had arts drawn for mama, some had songs written, poems, video etc. My J, decided  to play the piano, that what he loves and wrote a song for his Mama. He  adores his Great-Grandma because she could sign language with him, Mama learnt how to sign language in order to communicate with her closest friend who had an accident that  affected her speech.

The Birthday Scene.
All the great-grand kids have been told to gather in a particular room to relax and get ready for the birthday show.
J as usual was practicing with his piano, when he stood up to look outside and saw bubbly our little puppy drowning in the pool in our backyard. He tried to get everyone's attention as usual most children did not understand his distress. He attempted to get me on our special phone that shows red sign and makes a beep noise when press the call button his pressed from his phone.  I didn't see it because I mistakenly left in the bathroom. I have never done that before, I take it everywhere with me.

J, could not get through to me and did the only thing he thought was alright to do by jumping through the window to save bubbly, he jumped from a 1st floor to the ground floor to save bubbly, he hit his leg hard on flower pot and I tell u I heard the loudest scream of my life. Everyone in the room stopped for a second and we saw the kids running downstairs telling their parents, J, jumped through the window and how they tried to stop him but it was too late. I stood there for what seemed like hours to absorb the shock that it was J, and he fell, and he is lying there helplessly, he could be dead, or broken his ribs, his spinal cord, but the shock of all he screamed MAMA. I couldn't get my head around it.

It been 8 days after Mama's  birthday and it was a fabulous day apart from J and bubbly accident. Both are fine and are doing well, bubbly was saved by J, despite breaking his leg, in the mist of the shock, he got up quickly  to save our only pet. I cannot thank God enough that my own son J, is now getting speech therapy to improve his speech abilities. He can now call Mama, Papa. Zoh. He actual says AMEN,  he couldn't believe, we could not believe and we are still getting through the shock that he his actually communicating.

I am lost for words but I am thankful beyond measure that I never gave up my faith during this trial and I never gave hope that God love is real. I know this new journey will be challenging but I will never forget his promise.  I held on to those verses and they proved me right. I am forever grateful and forever faithful to my God and I encourage you to do the same.

It is true things happen, things beyond our control or means or power, we fret, we worry, we get angry, we blame, we hate and we regret. But, it is never  ends there, there is more, God is more, he is more in every single thing. You might not see it or know it now, but HE IS. Please be upset, express yourself, get angry, feel the pain but know that it does not stop there, he is and will be for you if you open your heart for him to heal and help.

This is a fictional story  inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is suppose to represent our everyday lives, struggles and faith in God. Any correlation  to anyone you know is purely coincidental.

 I want to encourage you,  that he is still in the miracle business. I say business because our business is our personal affairs, and he is still into our personal affiars and we all know we need a miracle one way or the other. So, Please hold on to your faith and he will come through no matter what.
 I pray Jesus will give us grace to be patient.

God is love, love yourself and on others too.