Julita Kuagben

All my mother ever was is good, kind, and thoughtful. She always put everybody first. She never thought of herself to a fault. So I put her first, and I am glad I was there for her throughout my life, her declining years, and at the end. Mum took care of her younger sisters in the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp when she was only twelve years old; they were seized, one day, on the way to school. She wouldn't get to see her mother, again, for two years. She saw her father, kept in a nearby camp, but only from a distance, and she wouldn't get to see her beloved older brother, who was taken to Dachau, for several years. Two of her uncles and two cousins were murdered in concentration camps; she loved them dearly but was to never see their faces again. She gave of herself completely in her profession as a midwife. She gave of herself completely as a wife and the best of Mothers. We were comrades in arms throughout various challenges. My Mother willed me to live when I was battling measles, Maleria and a virus all at the same time aged six with limited medical help. She held me in her arms day in and day out, and kept me tethered to this world. When my father became ill with Alzheimer's, we took care of him together and gave each other strength. My mother was the most compassionate and gracious of souls, and the loss of her is devastating to me.