. Fidelity Bank Boss transforms Orumba by mother’s funeral
Nobody makes lovely corpse. But Madam Comfort Madubom Okonkwo, the mother of Nnamdi Okonkwo, the MD of Fidelity Bank, did. Even in death, she cuts a perfect portrait of loveliness and humanity at its finest. Few people get to transit from being utterly indispensable to “eternally unforgettable.” A good mother does. Like the brightest daffodil amid a bouquet of flowers, she exudes enviable humaneness even in her wake.
Like a renaissance artist intoxicated by the muse, her rich son, Nnamdi, chose to paint beautiful and everlasting pictures in memory of his mother. Like tiny droplets that precede the hammering rain, the guests meandered into the rustic ambiance of Orumba in Anambra State. But unlike the proverbial rain droplet, each guest loomed large in reputation and acclaim thus making the assemblage a gathering of nobles, political and industry titans. They had all travelled to the east in honour of the Okonkwos. Thus on January 31st, Orumba literally stood still as the crème of Nigeria’s high society thronged its rustic neighbourhoods to attend the grand ascension of Okonkwo’s mother to the afterlife. Expectedly, it was a star-studded event.
The people of Orumba woke up to witness the grand procession of Madam Comfort’s funeral. Madam Comfort did not. There is no gainsaying she was the Queen of the Okonkwo clan and a doting mother to her children, a title no monarch could claim. Mama loved her children very deeply and was prepared to sacrifice her happiness for theirs.
Her final ceremonial progression through the streets of Orumba raised treasurable memories of her life among family, friends and even close neighbours. The recollections bespeak the misery of a watching world that fell in love with the beautiful daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
Despite the pain of remembering, no one wished to let go the brilliant memories of Madam Comfort Okonkwo, particularly Nnamdi, her loving son. Hovering by her side as she was borne toward an enchanted future, Nnamdi rued the final departure of his mother, struggling in his grief to deal with the humbling reality that his sweet, chaste mother had finally set out alone into eternity.
In one sense, though, Madam Okonkwo was not gone. The day before she was blessed and buried, her son made a rare, profoundly wrought surmise after days of puzzling grief, that no one who knew his mother will ever forget her. He averred that many others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.Even her coffin captured this mixture of the traditional and the personal. It was draped with the royal standard; on top of that rested a spray of white lilies, Mama’s favorite flower. And there was something else: a bouquet of white tulips from and a wreath of white roses
Madam Comfort’s cortege was joined along the way by the most important people in her life. They walked behind her coffin, and then so did representatives from each of the families and communities whose lives she had touched like no other human had. The deceased would definitely turn in her grave for the honour and unrivalled show of love that her beloved son attracted for her sake.
