B NWANNE NNENNA

My Auntie Bridget, godmother, in every sense of the word. I learnt the true essence of friendship, relationship & a strong support system watching you and my mother relate over the years. B nwanne Nnenna, gracious, elegant, brilliant, dependable, and fortright. Hmmmm, Auntie'm, I hold my feelings within my heart because words fail me. Sleep well, Auntie. You earned your place with the saints..

Your goddaughter,

Uche Osoka

Abuja, Nigeria

I grew up knowing Aunty Bridget as one of the two  stern educationists in my life.

Her schools were exceptional and she practised what she preached and didn't suffer fools gladly.

The Aba Women's Volunteer era (an N.G.O she was heavily invested) was my closest time with her as I also volunteered as an assistant to my mother. She would drop by for quick catch ups and a tea. Those were casual moment that showed a soft side and the sweetest of smiles.

I believe that every minute she spent on earth was well orchestrated by God (her autobiography spells it out). She lived well and loved well and was well loved.

Rest in peace aunty.

Engr  Chin Akwiwu

United Kingdom

Eulogy for Aunty Bridget 

We were totally unprepared for the sad news of your demise, as we’d all been online to congratulate you on reaching a venerable age. Our families have gone back through history to earlier happier times than this. Your status as a premier educator and leader was unparalleled, whilst our family always valued your wise counsel and support in our affairs. You have been a steady rock to us through good times and rough periods too. As the years went by this friendship and relationship only deepened amongst all generations of our families. As families we have lived intertwined lives covering loss, life  and celebrations. This is a deeply difficult moment, we hoped not to have had to confront at this time.  
We mourn your passing but know that God in Heaven knows best and will welcome you into his bosom. 

Oluchi Uduku

(For the Uduku family)

United Kingdom

 Aunty Bridget (The Love of Nwanne) 
 
Aunty Bridget and our mother (Onuma Ezera) called each other nwanne (sister). I am not sure I can remember a time when I did not know of Aunty Bridget. If I were to set out to describe her, the words equanimity, composed, reassuring, strength, and an overarching sense of love come to mind.  
When you saw the two of them together you were gifted with the true face of love. Not the fleeting and insubstantial face depicted in so many films, novels, and relationships, but the love of nwanne - unquestioning, unwavering, encouraging and supportive, reveling in her nwanne’s moments of joy and a rock in her (altogether too many) moments of despair. Aunty Bridget was a veritable human anchor as her nwanne rode the waves of troubled seas. She seemed to always bear a calm, reassuring manner, while providing her nwanne with the necessary strength to survive the losses of her husband, mother, brothers, sisters and her first son. It is the recognition of this constancy that led much of our village of Asaga, Ohafia to acknowledge her as one of their own. Aunty Bridget could easily drive into Asaga without preamble, and she would be recognized and honoured. 

My brothers and I, fresh from our experiences as refugees from the Biafran war and being raised in America, were slowly reintroduced to Nigeria over summer and Christmas breaks. Our visits invariably included Aba and the home of Dr. Ochia and Aunty Bridget Nwankwo, and their children Ihuoma, Emeka, and Mma. Whether we visited with or without my mother, Aunty Bridget’s house was our home in Aba. Often, when we were suffering from diarrhea or malaria, Dr. Nwankwo was the only one we would trust to help our bodies reacclimate to Nigeria. 

When I first learned to drive a stick shift in Nigeria, during my NYSC year, without thinking I drove straight from Port Harcourt to Aba to show off my new abilities to Aunty Bridget, the woman I saw as my second mother.  When we lost my brother tragically to an auto accident, my first instinct was to ask after my mother and then Aunty Bridget. I don’t know whether my mother would have survived the death of her first son without the comfort, support, and love of her nwanne. 

A woman of unsurpassed faith, Aunty Bridget relied on that faith to stoically carry the pain of witnessing her nwanne succumb to the unforgiving progressive illness called 
Alzheimer’s. When our mother passed, we took solace in the fact that we still had the love and support of Aunty Bridget, given to her nwanne and encompassing all of us. 
As I process the news of Aunty Bridget’s passing, I cannot help but remember the inimitable relationship she had with her nwanne, I pray that they are reunited, and I hope that we can provide, to Ihuoma and Emeka, even a modicum of the love and support that she gave to us and her nwanne in our lives. Ihuoma and Emeka, biko unu kara obi. 

Nnamdi Kalu Ezera on behalf of the Ezera family.

Sterling, VA