In Memoriam 

Thursday, January 12, 2011

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

      January 2011 started on a mournful note for the Liberian community in Georgia, and for many Liberian families who lost their loved ones since the beginning of the New Year. We are profoundly saddened by the loss and are shaken by the number, which is unprecedented for so many people to die in our community in just one month.

      While we are painfully reminded of the loss of these individuals, let us also be reminded not only of their sudden demise but for their firm commitment to family and community, because normally, the New Year is not about deaths and pain but about the celebration of family, togetherness, one’s past and a self-imposed commitment to start anew, hopefully to improve upon one’s perceived weakness so as to make the coming months and years much better than the last one.

     So when death raises its painful head on January 2, a day after the New Year, taking away a dear friend and colleague, Gabriel S. Gworlejaku Jr., and subsequently grabbing five Liberians I know of for now in the state of Georgia in the month of January, brings me to the painful realization that death is merciless and has no limit.

     Death, as we already know is non-partisan, and also an equal opportunity enforcer of grief and despair that often decimates families and friends only to sink those family members and friends further into grief and more grief after the painful ordeal of losing that loved one.

     With death comes unity or the need to be united for the common good of the deceased, the grieving families, and the community – in this case a struggling Liberian Association of Metropolitan Atlanta divided not only by national politics at home; but divided by the unsavory actions of opportunistic elements and bad leadership that failed to capitalize on the overwhelming goodwill and support it received from the community.

     Even though we have our problem as a community, the deceased were proud residents of the Liberian community of metro Atlanta who were unique in their own ways and lived their lives the way they knew best. They left an indelible mark not only on their families and friends but also on their place of worships and their respective neighborhoods, even as they depart this world.

     Living life and enjoying it to the fullest is the way to live even if we know ahead of time when and how we are going to die. The late psychiatrist and author Elizabeth Kubler Ross echoed that point when she wrote that “it is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”

       Other than Gabriel S. Gworlekaju Jr., whom I befriended and worked with professionally after the both of us founded our respective web sites theliberiandialogue.org and runningafrica.com in metro Atlanta in the early 2000s, I also knew Janet Kiawu whose mom, Ma Kemah babysat my daughter, Nanu, in the early 1990s when she was a toddler. Another death that hit our community occurred on January 6, when we lost another Janet – Janet Sonkarly, who was a good friend of my wife, Geebly.

     As a long-time resident of metro Atlanta, Janet Kiawu and I together with many other Liberians who lived here during those warm and unified early 1980s and 1990s, kept our metro Atlanta community lively and vibrant long before the toxic disunity that now separates us into ethnic, tribal, and school groupings seeped into our midst.

     So the relationship I had with Janet Kiawu was special, and the one with Gabriel was equally special and meaningful because of the time I spent with the individuals personally. Even though I never had a personal relationship with the other deceased Liberians, I am equally saddened by their deaths because they are fellow Liberians and good human beings whose lives were quietly taken away only to “disappear into the endless night forever.”

     May their souls rest in peace.