If I were a poet or some literary person I will dedicate time to write a piece in your honour that will make meaning to all generations. Not only am I not, the prevailing circumstances have handicapped my ability to scribble anything worthy of giving a real picture of who you have been to me. Were it not for such high profile confusion and utter shock a book would not be enough for the purpose.

When marriage fever started gripping me I found time, like it is when a child is in need, to ask God to sort out my wife from among the millions of beautiful women of His creation. As it turned out, my princess of the Fonfuka-Bum royal family - born on October 6th, 1973 to His Royal Highness Fon Emmanuel Ngweih and Ma Pauline Kang - was then resident in Yaounde. Little did I ever imagine that Yaounde was to be our meeting and separating point. You shorn all the suitors and the comfort both of your job and niceties of the capital city to accept me as a husband and moved to Bamenda immediately.

On the 4th of May, 2001 under anguish tears of the departure of my mum who passed on to Glory on the 12th February, we signed our lifelong commitment as husband and wife. In every way I can possibly think of it, the past 15 years have been awesome and fulfilling because of you, my wife. How I wish it were threefold this amount of time! Oh, but how marvellous, should we count our blessings and the problems encountered and solved. I found a wife indeed and the favour of God over us has been a chain of testimonies. In you I found a refuge, mentor, spiritual leader, teacher, and councillor. You were all of these, and more, wrapped up in God's bosom and kept just for me.

As my shelter you made our house a home not only for my blood brothers and sisters but to all I have both loved and hated before and during our entire being. With this it was safe and comforting staying home even in moments when we disagreed. YES dear, my head, heart and mind under your armpits in all situations yielded protection, provision and promotion. That is why I never hesitated keeping it there. How else could I be blessed?

As my mentor you reversed the paradigm of age being synonymous to wisdom and went every length to mentor and showed me the way out in both my professional and private undertakings. Through your gentle flair of words, temperance and ever increasing ability to correct me, was an omen and tact which came very close to reversing the power pattern required of any home, but you never minced your words and reminded me through actions that I was the one in charge and that my wish was to remain forever  your command.

As my spiritual leader and pastor you had a special knack for the heavenly treasures and kept the Lord Jesus towering over our household even in the darkest and most troubling moments of our lives. The Lord knows how often I grew weak and weary, but your apt mastery of the Bible and the lyrics of the psalms kept our hopes alive. Yes dear, I had prayed and attended lessons on prayers before I met you, but it is honest to say I learnt how, why and when to pray from you. You made our home a house of prayers and bore my sometimes unfiltered and unfinished passions with unflinching love. Even in my odds of modes your behaviour gave reasons to feel loved, admired and cherished both by you and our young daughter and son.

As my teacher and counsellor, and in spite your youth, you used your rich and exceptional experience with a distinctive mark of excellence to teach me how to figure out opportunities even from impossibilities. By the ratings at NWCA, I was an Administrative and Personnel Officer of renowned repute, but you taught me functional management of resources, money, people and temperaments. Na Marly, with your wider international exposure, you made sure you schooled me on every aspect of international composure, networking and competition. There is little doubt in my mind our bountiful harvest in season is because of how much you invested in me. You were the reason for my brilliance as an Administrative and Personnel Officer at the NWCA, and a greater backbone for all the good things I have done since I met you. You stood by my side, steadfast in prayers, provided invaluable advice, and were with me through some rough times and worked with me through moments of distress.

Even when you were out of the country for work in Cotonou, your counsel provided worthy reasons to accept the position of General Manager at NWCA Ltd when the appointment came. We know the challenging state of the establishment when we took over management. You sorted out the opportunities therein and went ahead to propose some areas for projects to be prepared. NWCA Ltd is slowly but surely taking off and has better hopes and opportunities than when “you” and I took over the office. Every credit to this end is inextricably mated on you for being its invisible manager when everybody, including myself, went to bed. Your ability to think and prepare my action before time is the magic that has kept me young throughout our sojourn.

But Na Marly, this is not all. You were a humble, honest, intelligent, a beautiful woman and wife with no rival in the contemporary or even in the generations yet to come. You made me to know that there was no greater way of paying tribute to my parents than naming our two children after them. In them I see my mum and dad visibly alive in another generation. What is more, your humility was not pretence wrapped up in silence and blind obedience. Rather, it was your ability to stop talking and apologize even when you were not wrong. You understood that Bo Marly and always took one for the team. As a hallmark of honesty you were accountable to all, not only on your finances, but equally of your time and actions.

You held jobs and migrated from them at irregular intervals, but your employers will forever testify that you were an epitome of honesty, humility and demonstrated very high professional abilities. You beat the odds and became more than a brilliant and successful crossover from History and Modern Letters, where you obtained a Bachelor of Arts (BA) to the holder of a Master’s Degree in Public Health Education (MPHE) – Health Promotion - from the University of Benin, Nigeria. But you were not nearly done.... You were well underway to completing your PhD in Public Health Medicine Student at the University of KWA-Zulu Natal (UKZN), South Africa in March of 2016. Your education and career, with singular focus on serving humanity, stand as a living legacy to me and our children.

You hated conspiracy and underrating with a passion. It took us a long time of prayers to forgive those who accused you falsely of writing an anonymous later against your boss in one of your jobs. But that was just one of such prizes we had to pay in fulfilling our Christian beatitudes.

DEAR NA MARLY, Aunty DORCAS mother of my children, you are, and SAD AGAIN TO SAY WERE,  an academic giant and  beacon of light to both young and old folks. Your razor sharp mentality and careful choice of words and temperament bolted your name in many organizations and enviable jobs courted or yearned for by many. Indeed, you severally turned down several lucrative jobs and the glamour of living between two planes because of us, your family. Particularly,

Remember, in 2012 you resigned from a lucrative position to finish the work of transforming me. That confirmed an earlier imagination in me that your home (You, I and our children) mattered to you more than any worldly pleasures. Even more so, and in answer to11 long years over which you prayed, God rescued me from the streets, bars and other obscene gatherings to become your venerated husband with a veritable sense of home. Needless to say away from the streets and bars to our home, your fief, I found an affection and indescribable passion of not only a husband and father but also that of a king. You were my woman, younger sister, mother, love of my life and wife of my youth with whom everything came.

Little did I know death was preparing me for Widowhood. In your honour I will be home for the rest of this life. Unless I have been in a bad dream since that day of infamy when you died in my arms, our two children and loved ones across the globe are bound to face a new reality. It may be one replete with confusion, destitution and unimagined episodes. It was the worst piece of theatre on that lonely Clinic bed that Saturday morning when you stopped talking and breathing. Since then I have not heard, read or talked to you in spite my eagerness to do so. All I hear now from all who matter to us is -  "Tim, take heart." But you know you were my heart beat and my all. You and I know that you almost died on the 17th of July 2004 when you delivered our beloved son, Ncham. Upon your restoration you told me you came back to see me and our children through. You think, my dear, that 11 years are enough?

As it stands it seems like I will from this moment

(a) Hear, feel, see and talk to you no more,

(b) Be my own chef, wife, carer, teacher, mentor and counsellor

(c) Be both a father and mother to Martha and Ncham

d) Run the affairs of your office and mine from a single narrow mindset

Oh, what a tall order without you!

DID SOME ONE SAY WIDOWER? oohh NO death, you are wicked may thou be slain if thou be gone Na Marly, my love and greatest of all seasons

Dear God, grant her the grace to enter your bosom and keep me safe enough to join her some day when my own toiling shall be ended and burdens laid down. Thank you, my love, for your selfless care, love, support and everything. You must know that life will be a tale of solitude without you. But rest assured, I will spend the rest of my lonely sojourn here on earth fulfilling our unfinished dreams. Our children will have the intended care, education and heritage which you gave your life for.

The dreams and objectives of your NGO - to empower the needy, grant hopes to desperate and make the world a better place to live in - will be kept alive and sustained in every aspect. I will constitute a team of people of repute to finish the distribution of the huge stock of vitamins in our keeping alongside the scholarships earmarked. God being my lead, I will work with your partners and donors to sustain the previewed projects. I feel they will be no greater way of keeping your legacy alive than changing the name of this NGO ASEED in some near future to read DORCAS’S FOUNDATION.

Fare thee well in God's bosom my monument and my all. In answer to your prayers and fervent wish, I shall be part of the marriage super where we will meet to part no more.

Yours truly forever

Tim