THIS GREAT HEART GOES HOME
By Casey Donpido
I have written these words more times than I can count.
I have stared at them. Deleted them. Written them again. Read them over and over, hoping that somehow, somewhere between the words, I would find the strength to accept what I am about to say.
But each time, I simply log off.
Because how does a son announce to the world that the man who was his world is no longer in it?
How do you put into words the death of the man who, to you, seemed almost incapable of dying?
The man I knew was the toughest man I ever knew.
The most resilient.
The most disciplined.
The most caring.
The most generous.
The most loving.
He was a man whose strength was not merely in his hands, but in his presence. A man whose shoulders seemed broad enough to carry the troubles of an entire family. A man I looked at and somehow believed that, no matter how dark life became, Dad would always be there.
That illusion of permanence has now been shattered.
My Dad is dead.
Even writing those words feels like betraying something inside me.
Because my mind understands what has happened, but my soul has not yet agreed to it.
I still find myself wanting to call him.
I still expect to hear his voice.
I still imagine that somehow, he will walk through the door, sit down, and life will return to the way it was.
But death is cruel in that way.
It does not negotiate.
It does not explain.
It simply arrives, takes someone you love, and leaves you standing in the ruins of a life that suddenly looks completely different.
Dear friends, family, ndi Okigwe nwe’m, and well-wishers, my father, Grand Chief Edwin C. Mbiamnozie – VIP, Ekwueme 1 of Omuma, the man with the greatest of hearts, the man I called “My God,” the man who made me, is gone home to be with the Lord.
And I don’t know how to explain the emptiness he has left behind.
Dad was not simply the father of our family.
He was the pillar upon which our family rested.
He was the one people came to when they had nowhere else to turn. His generosity was not something he advertised; it was simply the way he lived.
For generations of students who passed through Okigwe and Abia State University, he was that man who opened his doors when there were no buses to take them to campus late at night.
For the people who bought interior decorating materials from him; curtains, rugs, carpets, hangers, and so much more, he was the man who would watch you count your money and, when it was not enough, tell you to go home with what you needed and pay when you could.
He gave people dignity when circumstances had taken it away from them.
He helped people without making them feel helped.
He gave without keeping score.
And now, that man is gone.
There are deaths that make you sad.
And then there are deaths that make you question how the world is supposed to continue turning.
This is the latter.
My heart is not merely broken. It feels displaced.
It feels as though death did not take only my father; it took a portion of the man I was when he was alive.
Because there are some people whose existence becomes woven so deeply into yours that when they leave, they do not leave you whole.
Dad, you took a part of me with you.
You were my shelter in a world that could sometimes be unforgiving.
You were the voice behind so many of my memories.
You were the man whose existence made certain things in life feel permanent.
And now I am being forced to learn one of life’s most painful truths:
Nothing is permanent, not even the people we quietly believe will be there forever.
Perhaps that is what grief really is.
It is love discovering that it has nowhere left to go.
It is the heart continuing to call a name that heaven has already answered.
It is reaching for someone who used to be there and finding only silence.
It is waking up each morning and, for one brief second, forgetting that they are gone – only for reality to return and break you all over again.
My siblings and I are hurting beyond what words can adequately carry.
There are moments when we speak, and there are moments when silence says everything.
We are grieving not only the man we lost, but the future we imagined with him.
The conversations we will never have.
The advice we will never hear.
The laughter we will never share.
The occasions he will never attend.
The milestones he will never witness.
And all the ordinary moments we once took for granted, not knowing that one day, those ordinary moments would become the things we would give anything to have back.
So, dear friends and family, I ask you:
Please pray for us.
Pray for my siblings.
Pray for our family.
Pray that God gives us the strength to carry a grief that feels far too heavy for human shoulders.
In the coming days, I will keep you all informed as we make preparations to give our father the farewell befitting the life he lived and the legacy he leaves behind.
We will take him home.
Home to his ancestors.
Home to the generations before him.
Home to the God he served.
But I know this much:
A man like my father does not truly leave.
He remains in the lives he touched.
In the children he raised.
In the people he helped.
In the homes he entered.
In the people who will tell stories about his kindness long after we are gone.
He remains in us.
And perhaps that is the closest thing we have to defeating death.
Because death may take the body.
But it cannot take the love a man planted in the hearts of those he left behind.
Dad…
You did this one to me. You broke me. You broke your beloved Son, Anyaehe is grieving and it is taking a toll on me.
You took away the one person I somehow believed the world could not take away from me.
You died with a whole part of me.
And I honestly do not know how to retrieve it.
Maybe I never will.
Maybe grief is not something we overcome.
Maybe we simply learn to carry it, like an invisible scar, a permanent reminder that once, we were blessed enough to love someone so deeply that losing them could hurt this much.
So rest, my father.
Rest, my God.
Rest, VIP.
Rest, Ekwueme.
Your work here is done.
Your children will carry your name.
Your grandchildren will hear your stories.
Your kindness will continue to speak.
And your memory will remain a sacred place in our hearts.
A great heart has gone home to the Lord.
And somewhere between heaven and earth, I hope you know this:
Your son loves you.
Your son misses you.
Your son is broken.
But your son will carry you.
Until we meet again, Dad.
Rest peacefully.
You were loved beyond words.
You are missed beyond measure.
And you will never, ever be forgotten.
