AuntieMonica –AnAngelWith HiddenWings An obviously attractive, engaging smile is a very welcome face for a fairly young priest in a very intimidating University Chaplaincy of the kind of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Chaplaincy at KNUST, Kumasi, when you are not even 30 years old. That was the kind that greeted me when, on the first Sunday of November 1995, I met AuntieMonica for the first time, even if memory is growing dim. From then on, I would meet this very friendly woman after every First Mass on alternate Sundays, talking with the Ladies and greeting all and sundry. AuntieMonica was clearly a very well-known lady of the Ladies, and everyone appeared to be drawing near to have a share in the glow. Today, I can put a description to the concept: clearly a compulsive helper personality. AuntieMonica is a helper to a fault. There is no one in need that she will fail to assist if and when she ever comes across one. Not that she is nosy or seeks people out, but there is a charm about her that makes people go to her when she can be of help. She must have seen that two fairly young priests would need help, and help she gave. Often when she came to me, she did not need help, but someone else did: to bless a rosary, to ask for an intention for prayer, or the time for the next Mass on an odd day. Simple things like that to more time-consuming tasks like going to bless a house or even a burial site or a grave. Such is the woman we celebrate today. She is a mother to far too many students you care to know. Hers are infinitely broad shoulders on which many a student cries and seeks comfort, from one who has had a bad day to another with an unmentionable problem only AuntieMonica would know. The Good Lord must have given her a rare gene that can detect and attract the needy to an ever-ready helper of the AuntieMonica kind. She is blessed with wisdom, the kind that only the Lord can give. She will solve a problem that, to many, looks insoluble. My own siblings know that there is nothing AuntieMonica cannot deal with when it comes to this seemingly impossible priest. She has a way of telling it, explaining, and solving it that only AuntieMonica can do and knows how to. Her maternal instincts are out of this world. She can mother everybody without your knowing that she is utilising those God-given rare gifts, be it at the loss of a dear one, when you do not know how you are going to live without them. She has a way with impossible children who are playing truant at school or at home. You never knowwho the next son or daughter you are going to meet at AuntieMonica’s house is, seeking refuge in the boys’ quarters or even in the inner house. There is always someone who needs to be taken care of in there, somewhere. I have had my own share of enjoying Auntie Monica’s maternal helping hand. When my priestly silver jubilee was approaching, I was having difficulty knowing how to celebrate it in a worthwhile way. Auntie needed only to knowmy anxiety before I knew it, she had organised the event singlehandedly with no help coming fromme, in a way an entire planning committee couldn’t have. All I needed was for my dear father to pass on. You have never known that combination of sorrow, anxiety, loneliness, confusion, waking up to emptiness like one does when one loses a dear, dear father like I did. It took only AuntieMonica. Everything was planned; all I needed was to ask, and it had been planned, even as far as those friends who might be passing by after the funeral: drinks (beer for the beer drinkers, small chops, etc.). She has an impossible intuition about her; it is the type that the Lord gifts to such exceptional people like Auntie Monica, who is always ready to put at God’s disposal those gifts He alone is hiding in her maternal bosom. I have observed Auntie console and help console widows and widowers. In my little priestly life, I have come to know a few things, and one that I am certain about is the confusion that overwhelms one at the loss of a wife, when otherwise tough, powerful men lose their wives. On such occasions, when no one knows what to do, AuntieMonica knows how to organise the seating, water, coffee, and tea for those who will need it—all from a very discreet, unnoticeable corner when no one notices her. AuntieMonica? I cannot say enough, but suffice it to say: she is mother for all, helper for the needy, consoler for the sorrowing, disciplinarian for even the bandsmen—if you know how brass bands’ men look like— the eminent parishioner, committee member you cannot do without, the matron who organises the chicken even from afar. Simply EVERYTHING in ONE. In my candid opinion, AuntieMonica is an angel without wings that the Good Lord uses for His own purpose, most definitely in my own case. There have been enough times I wouldn’t have known what to do without AuntieMonica. Let me say, without Auntie Monica, I do not knowwhat I would have done to give my dearMother a fitting burial. AuntieMonica wouldn’t want me to go on because she wouldn’t want to have her horns blown, but I would rather do some of it now and even more later. Eighty years is reserved for the strong and the faithful of the Lord. I knowAuntieMonica fits the bill for the latter, and for this you are and will forever be loved and cherished. Rev. (Prof.) John Appiah-Poku 186 The Birthday Journal
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