Our latest trip to Ghana was filled with so much good. We saw 30 Kekeli women complete a curriculum that will help them save the lives of women giving birth in their communities. We felt hope as we mapped new communities who will see their own Kekeli women trained in 2016. And we heard first-hand stories of the impact the Kekeli women are having, every day.
What we haven’t shared with you is that our trip was also filled with incredible sadness. One of the original Kekeli women, Veronica, passed away while we were in Ghana. We didn’t share this publicly at the time out of respect for her and her family. Today she is being laid to rest and the time feels right to share our grief with you.
It began as a fairly typical absence from our training – in a group of 30 there will inevitably be sickness or a family emergency. But then we heard Veronica was admitted to the local hospital’s medical ward. I visited her on three different occasions and found her incredibly frail, unable to sit up in bed to greet us, although she tried. On my final visit I learned she had been discharged, good news we presumed.
We weren’t expecting the visit from her son, sitting beside us on the veranda, to share in person that Veronica had passed away the day before. We were shocked and heartbroken. It still isn’t clear what her illness was, a seemingly innocuous stomach bug lasting the better part of a month. But without much warning and without much explanation, as is so often the case in Ghana, she was gone.
Veronica was a strong, quiet, and beautiful woman. She was a Queen Mother in her community, looked up to for advice and perspective on a great many issues. She was humble and sweet. And she was beloved by her fellow Kekeli women.
Her community is called Weto and our thoughts are with them today. We visited her family in person to pay our respects, a cultural custom in Ghana, and our thoughts are with those we met under the palm fronds that cool Wednesday morning. And our thoughts are with the Kekeli women, who are all attending her funeral today as a show of their love, and ours as well.
When we set out on this journey as an organization and as people, we couldn’t imagine all that our relationships with the Kekeli women would bring – the deep joy, satisfaction, and laughs. We also couldn’t imagine the sorrow we’d feel losing a member of the Kekeli family.
We remember Veronica today for what she gave us and her community. And it is with gratitude we say goodbye.
