*When a loved one passes, we forget all those who make it possible to ease through the end-of-life period or funeral arrangements after death. The nurses, carers, Doctors, Surgeons, Ambulance drivers, porters, funeral directors, counselors, undertakers, and many more professionals make caring for the living and burying the dead as important for loved ones and families who go through difficult times.
When we lost our mother Marcellina Fatunla last year, I experienced for the first time how important the funeral directors are, in easing the pain of our loss, comforting us continuously, and giving a befitting and lovely funeral send-off to her. Andrew Johnson Funeral Services Limited in Southeast (London) who looked after our mother, had one aim and it was to act in a professional manner and provide courteous, sensitive, and dignified service to the children and husband she left behind.
In the United Kingdom, The National Health Service famously called NHS has just marked its 75th anniversary. The NHS is a health service free at the point of use and paid for through taxes by adults paid to the UK government that everybody in the UK can use when they become poorly or injured, to help them to get better. Our mother a retired nurse in the U.K. herself was a beneficiary of the NHS. Before she died, her end-of-life was to be suggested that she spend the rest of her life in a Hospice, but she passed in a hospital before she could be transferred to a Hospice.
Touching on Hospice, a close friend and old school colleague, Dr. Clive Timehin lost his sister Lorna Timehin late last year at St. Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham in London, U.K. and this was a month after my mother was buried. It occurred to me that there are many ways families remember their loved ones. They vary some donating a bench to a park, some on memorial websites, some planting trees, and some, through charity events to raise money for the charity of their choice or to those who took care of their loved ones till their end. Nearing eight months later Dr. Clive arranged a Charity event to raise funds for his sister, Lorna’s Hospice in her memory.
The Charity event called Painting and Sip Fundraising event was a painting activity in which guests invited, found themselves painting Water lilies with the tutoring assistance of a professional artist. Shandy Paint and Sip provided an enjoyable time. There were donated prizes given to raffle ticket winners, all for a good cause, and money raised was donated to St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, London. I donated my late mother’s belongings to St Christopher’s Hospice shop in Sydenham, London.
Lorna Timehin who was a Fashion designer lived a colorful life and brought joy to many. The Charity event, the lovely amateur paintings, the music, the guests and her old classmates from Queen’s College Lagos, the atmosphere, the venue, and the raffle draw made for a good late afternoon event, and it was a big success. Lorna would have had it no other way. A fashion designer herself. The pioneer of the thriving fashion industry and tailoring business in Nigeria in the 1970s was Pa John Oluyede Timehin father of Dr. Clive Timehin and Lorna Timehin. Is it any wonder Lorna took after her father as a fashion designer? Charity is the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need and as a show of appreciation by raising money for organizations that need donations to keep their work going. It’s good to give than to receive. The Paint and Sip event was quite a unique Charity event.
TAYO Fatunla whose work has been featured on MSN.com via EURweb.com is an award-winning British-Nigerian Comic Artist, Editorial Cartoonist, Writer, and Illustrator and is an artist of the African diaspora. He is a graduate of the prestigious Kubert School, in New Jersey, US., and recipient of the 2018 ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrated OUR ROOTS creation and series – Famous people in Black History – He participated at UNESCO’s Cartooning In Africa forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Cartooning Global Forum in Paris, France and has held a virtual OUR ROOTS cartoon workshop for SMITHSONIAN- National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C. His Fela Kuti image is prominently featured in Burna Boy’s mega-Afrobeat hit song “Ye”. – https://www.instagram.com/tfatunla123
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: TAYO Fatunla’s Diary: Load-Shedding in South Africa – Another Word for Nigeria’s is ‘NEPA’ | Video
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