“Embracing
change is not just an escape from monotony, but a step toward living a life
full of purpose and joy.”
(Quoted from ‘Trapped in routine? Here’s how to “dishabituate” and rediscover joy’ by Jonny Johnson published in Neuropath on March 8, 2024)
Graduation Day (December 8, 2018)
Back to School
Tambu enrolled in the Associate in Arts in Social Work
degree at Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC) in Fall 2012
starting with one mathematics class. The course load was increased starting in
Spring 2013. As one who always wanted to contribute to the family income, Tambu
was employed as a student worker in the college café at Cooper Campus. After a
semester she changed jobs and got employed in the St. Joseph Hospital kitchen.
She was on a team that prepared and delivered food to patients.
When she reached the specialization level of the coursework required for the Social Work degree, Tambu needed to complete internships. She did the first internship at Bob Brown Housing. This is an apartment complex facility that offers affordable housing to mentally disabled individuals. The unique feature of the facility is that the residents are provided three meals per day while being afforded enough independence to seek employment and live reasonably gainful lives. Residents are also taken to events such as baseball games. Tambu helped in the kitchen at Bob Brown Housing and offered her minivan to take residents to social events.
The Rock of the Family
The period of Tambu’s attendance at BCTC coincided with
losses of all parent figures in her life. Her dad, Dick, passed away in
December 2012. Her mother, Lesa, followed seven months later in July 2013. And
her adopted mother Helen Brown lost the battle with cancer in September 2015.
Loss of parents is disorienting. Such loss can destabilize a
family. Parents act as a glue in a family in ways that are not noticeable. It
is only when they are gone that the void they have left is magnified. It is not
surprising that the loss of Dick, Lesa, and Helen resulted in some kind of
“unravelling” in the Chirwa, Manondo, and Brown families. The grandchildren of
Dick and Lesa as well as Helen started rebelling against their parents, uncles,
and aunts. Some of the grandchildren started to pursue a wild lifestyle.
In all this, Tambu proved an anchor that stabilized the
families. She was resolute in advising the grandchildren how to return from
where they had strayed. And she did all that with a lot of love, tough love
that is. It took some time for the families to recover. When we all came out of
it (to the extent that we could), new traditions were born. There was a general
acceptance of a different way of relating as families and it was all okay.
Tambu graduated with an Associate in Arts in Social Work in
May 2016. This made her the first among her siblings to obtain a college
degree. But she was not finished. In August 2016, she enrolled in a Bachelor in
Social Work (BSW) degree program at Morehead State University in Eastern
Kentucky.
Juggling
The Morehead State University social work program was
conducted at a campus in a small town named Mt. Sterling-Kentucky half-way
between Lexington-Kentucky and Morehead-Kentucky. This town is 40 miles from
Lexington. The program used a cohort model where an intake of students started
and progressed together until graduation. Tambu went to class twice a week
driving her minivan. She found a job at a company called Comfort Keepers, in
Lexington, that provided care for homebound elderly. She went to work on days
that she did not go to class.
|
WORK
PERIOD |
EMPLOYER |
POSITION |
TYPE OF
WORK |
|
June 2016 – July
2017 |
Comfort
Keepers |
In Home
Caretaker |
home care for
assisted independent living elderly |
|
Fall 2017 |
Kentucky
United Methodist Home for Youth |
Junior
Practicum |
Documenting
cases |
|
January 2018
– December 2018 |
Kentucky
United Methodist Home for Youth |
Youth
Counselor |
Visitations
with individual residents and life coaching |
|
Fall 2018 |
Cabinet for
Health and Family Services |
Senior
Practicum |
Investigations
for abuse/neglect/dependency of children |
In August 2017, Tambu was diagnosed with cancer. She had
surgery to remove the cancerous material. She took a month off school and work
to recover from the surgery. The oncology doctor believed the cancer was
detected early at stage 1. The survival rating was put at 90 percent.
One of the most significant events to occur during Tambu’s
college years was that her youngest son Kabelo got married to Katie Harper of
St. Louis-Missouri. The wedding was in September 2018. Tambu was over the moon
to have a stepdaughter and she loved Katie and her whole family. Three months
before the wedding, with the help of her Niece Martha Tambala, she organized a
Malawi traditional engagement ceremony called “chinkhoswe” in O’Fallon near St.
Louis. For the actual wedding, she ensured that the Chirwa and Manondo families
were well represented. From Malawi, she invited her sister Catherine, her
nephew and his wife Ronnie and Violet, and my sister Grace Kussein. From South
Africa came my brother Evans. From Britain came Tambu’s nephew’s wife Chisomo.
The logistics were dizzying to say the least. Ever the organizer, Tambu was on
top of her game (while she attended classes – never missed a class).
Save the Best for Last
Tambu graduated from Morehead State University in December
2018 with a Bachelor of Social Work degree. After the surgery of 2017, the
oncology doctor ordered checkups every three months. The March 2019 checkup
revealed that the cancer had returned. Tambu started chemotherapy treatment in
April 2019. I became a caregiver to my wife. Two months later, in June 2019,
Tambu was employed as a social worker at the Jefferson County office (in
Louisville-Kentucky) of the Child Protective Services / Cabinet for Health and
Family Services. The job was about protecting children. This involved cases
that had already been investigated. There were a few cases where she went to
snatch children from unsafe home environments. But most times, she was helping
abusive parents or parents whose homes were deemed unfit for raising children
to follow court prescribed steps so they could get their children back.
The job required getting started with a Masters in Social
Work (MSW) at the University of Louisville. We rented an apartment in
Louisville. Tambu completed some coursework towards the master’s. The
chemotherapy seemed to be working as the oncology doctor told Tambu that
reduction of the cancer was observed. We considered getting Tambu ensconced
into Louisville life and career. So, we started searching for a house to
purchase in Louisville.
Then Covid-19 came causing closures of offices in March
2020. We kept the apartment in Louisville, but Tambu worked from home in
Lexington. Having cancer is emotionally devastating. And yes, Tambu had many
moments when she feared the worst and was depressed by such thoughts. Yet,
overall, Tambu maintained a positive outlook on life. She continued to work on
her passions. And she was more worried about other people, such as me, than she
was about herself.
“Are you eating enough food?”, she would ask me.
“Are you sleeping enough?”
And she told her sister Amy that she was worried that her husband Robert would just be sequestered in his basement when she was gone.
Concluding Remarks
So, Tambu overcame the odds.
Counted out as a teenager, she stayed the course and ended up being the only
one among her siblings to have a college degree. She even started a master’s
degree program. She worked hard to maintain a loving and nurturing family. With
genuine authenticity she cared for, raised, and protected children whom she
loved so much. Along the way, she took care of the elderly, refugees, the poor
in West Virginia, and the lonely. At the same time, she provided love and
counsel to her siblings and the extended family. All those she touched speak
highly of her. And off-course, she took care of yours truly! Tambu was a
remarkable woman! Maybe the epitaph says it best, “Loving wife, mother, aunt, sister, and friend.”
