Boniface Thomas Patcha

Dear daddy, 

Where do I begin? My heart is so heavy. I am certainly not ready to do this! Not now....

For over a decade now, our home here in Maryland was your base. Your landing and departure spot. You were a cherished and most beloved part of our family. Your designated bedroom is as impeccable as you left it, with your winter clothes in the closet. You treated me with so much love and respect and as a daughter in law, I couldn’t have asked for more. You were the ‘shelter’ where everyone came to rest - embracing my entire family with love and warmth. My siblings all called you "daddy" too, just like me. You prayed and offered countless Holy Masses for my late dad. You never forgot a single anniversary for 14 years (I am sure he is busy showing you around right about now).

Saturday January 7th 2017, we left Limbe Cameroon and you were healthy, happy and we joked as usual. I have not stopped thinking about our last hugs and goodbye. How could I have known it will be the last? Who will call me "mami Lum" again?? I will miss you daddy; I will especially miss the little pleasures - the anticipation of making a plate of your favorite achu meal. (I didn't cook it but my sisters and mom made sure you had a constant supply). The satisfaction on your face after enjoying a good meal of okro and garri and pushing it down with a guinness or two. How you would step in to gently chide Roland when he was too hard on the kids. How Roland and I were proud each time you drove off in the big black truck to your numerous doctor’s appointments or to Frederick to visit with Mama. Your loud phone calls to Cameroon woke me up most mornings - sometimes I will grumble about the noise but now I will give anything to hear the sound of your voice once more. I will miss the stories/jokes you narrated while I cooked in the kitchen; you repeated some, but I still enjoyed and laughed along. I will miss how you would gently knock on our bedroom door to enquire about something that could wait and how Roland would politely respond to you and thereafter roll his eyes as you walked away. Daddy, your print outs! I will miss printing and stapling your documents at my office, this was a constant and my coworker friends couldn't help giggle each time they found a prayer on the printer, they sure knew to bring it to me. I will miss the lovely prayerful appreciative and fatherly emails. They were a constant!! I will miss your very modest lists of needs, in the neatest and tiniest of hand writings. Who would pray the rosary around our home in the wee hours again? Oh my poor kids; grandpa why did you go so soon? What happened? Was it your time? Just like that? no warning signs? We can't question God for He says in everything we should give thanks. I want to thank you for all these amazing years. We had plenty of fun with our families and friends here in MD.

Digging through over a decade of photo archives, told the entire story of beautiful memories that I will cherish and forever hold on to. You taught us all so many lessons that will stick with us forever; lessons mostly by actions, not words; lessons of appreciation, humility and modesty as you went about and how you carried yourself. Lessons of love, tolerance, respect and protectiveness towards your wife, mama. Your love for God was profound and you served Him well through mankind. Thank you for the unending prayers. For the values you instilled in our kids (your ‘coconuts’, as you fondly called them). Thank you for loving me as your own, for accepting my love and for giving me the chance to grow as a daughter in law. I had a void when my daddy left this world in 2003; you came along and embraced me as your own giving me the opportunity to pour some daughterly love on you. Thank you for raising an amazing man - my husband Roland. I know you are very proud of the man he has become. He is missing you so terribly. Please continue to pray for him, that his love for God grows as profound and as deep as yours. Please watch over our family daddy and take your rightful place in His Heavenly Kingdom, for you fought a triumphant battle and have now passed on the baton!

I love you and will miss you forever.

Your daughter 

Imma Fonmedig Patcha 

January 20^th, 2017 marked a dark day in my life.  The call I had dreaded finally came ringing at the wee hours of that day.  With my sister wailing on the other end of the phone, I propped myself up in bed and in total shock and disbelief, I gently told my wife, dad is gone.  She immediately broke into a loud cry, joining my sister on the phone as they both cried out the pain that this news had inflicted on us.  I sat there, telling myself that this was just a hoax; that the morning light will come and it will all be ok again.  Well, there came the morning light, and what we received was a video, with your lifeless body, as it was wheeled away to be transported to the morgue.  Oh, what pain and disappointment I felt.  This couldn’t be!  You are “Ninja” like we grew up calling you behind your back.  To us, you were capable of anything.  How could you let this happen to you?  What a devastating blow; especially more so as it had been less than two weeks of us (my in-laws and myself) visiting and spending a week with you at your compound in Bota Limbe.  There you treated us with freshly tapped and chilled palm-wine; always the best money can buy.  It was a beautiful atmosphere, filled with so much warmth, teases, jokes and laughter.  We dreaded going back to the real world.  On January 7^th, 2017, the day of our departure back to the U.S, in your typical machismo, you showed no sign of the slightest pains or aches.  Instead, you and the other children at the compound worked hard to set up the place for a meeting you hosted later that day.  As we prepared to depart for the airport, we teased and joked and laughed some more.  My wife, pulling out her cell phone, captured the moments, not knowing your time in this world had run out.  Oh, if only we had a hint!  Perhaps we wouldn’t have departed.  Perhaps our hugs would have been much firmer and endless.  Perhaps we would have shed tears, begging God to grant you more time, and the list goes on…

Dad, everything I am today is because of you and my dearest mom – Lord grant her strength.  You distinguished yourself in all that you did.  In your career, a position of power, you didn’t enrich yourself like others typically did and are still doing.  You sought out to protect, practice justice and equality.  You offered a lending hand to who so ever needed one.  You made friends with people of all ages, no matter their background, as long as they were not a menace.  You were strict, but understanding; powerful, but humble; serious, but good-humored; macho, but God-fearing.  These defining qualities I have long admired and respected and still fall short to emulate.

Wherever you go, your charm latches on.   As I mourn you, so too are thousands of your adopted children scattered all over the world.  The phone calls, emails and text messages, the impromptu visits from all the children and friends you’ve left behind, and touched and the lives you’ve shaped in one way or another keep pouring in endlessly.  Oh how you’ve made the “Patcha” name, a name to be reckoned with.  I’ll proudly beat my chest, that Mr. Boniface T. Patcha is my dad.

January 20^th, 2017 is the birth of a new reality for me.  Life begins without you, my rock and my fortress.  I now have to reach in the bag of life’s lessons you’ve taught me.  I’m scared, but you were a great teacher and mentor.  The road ahead will be tough and bumpy, but I’ll hold firm to your teachings and examples.

There is no stone that you left unturned in this world.  Go and have the much deserved rest you earned with God your creator.

I love you daddy.

Roland Patcha aka BigRol