Renowned media personality William Des Bordes popularly known as Lovin Cee said final goodbyes to his deceased wife Patricia Des Bordes who passed at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) some weeks ago.
He sorrowfully shared their journey as a couple and events leading to her demise on that fateful day.
Read full transcript from below.
“ Thus says the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah; Lamentation and bitter weeping for her children; refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more”( Jeremiah31:15)
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye”
Friday June 8 th 2018 was the last day I spoke to the woman God gave me as wife and got a verbal response. I remember that Friday afternoon vividly at the Recovery Ward of the KATH Polyclinic where she had been admitted as a result of taking some medicine she was allergic to while treating what was seen initially as a harmless cold.
That fateful Friday afternoon when I visited, she was eating Ampesie and Kontomire stew for lunch. She reassured me that she was feeling better but the doctors had advised that we had to get a family member with her blood type to donate so that she could recover fully. At this point all the tests they had run at the clinic had proven negative. An indication that she wasn’t in any danger.
Pat had earlier complained of the rather harsh treatment she was receiving at the ward but I encouraged her that I would deal with that. She also narrated how she had fallen at the rather unkempt bathroom of the hospital but was responding to treatment. A visiting nurse from another department joined our conversation and said she anticipated me and my wife attending church service to thank God for healing her.
I left her bedside about 2:45pm on that Friday for the office with joy in my heart that my wife and mother of my kids was about to return home since our first-born had just started writing his BECE EXAM.
Some minutes after my radio show around 6:30pm, I got a call from my wife’s assistant who had paid a visit that she had collapsed and gone unconscious. I asked why this could happen within such a short period of my leaving but I was told that she passed out when the new blood sample was being transfused.
Sadly, I gathered the ambulance driver who was supposed to help after this terrible incident, was busily browsing on his phone. A doctor passing by hadto virtually pull my wife‟s bed from the KATH Polyclinic Recovery Ward to the RED SECTION of the KUFUOR EMERGENCY at KATH.
When I rushed to the Hospital the situation was so dire. The six doctors on duty were busily trying to resuscitate her. I stood motionless in utter shock and in dismay watching what was unfolding before my very eyes. It turned out that all the ventilators at the RED SECTION of KATH were occupied so one doctor was using manual effort to pump oxygen to my wife who was by then helplessly gasping for breath.
This doctor using the manual oxygen pump was running out of steam after holding on for over 45 minutes. I was informed that seconds lost without oxygen at this point was going to be catastrophic. During this tense moment, I was asked to sign a form to allow the doctors to use a new brand of ventilator, which had just been brought from the United States on her but they couldn’t vouch for its efficacy. I had to muster courage to sign and thankfully it worked and Pat’s condition stabilised a bit.
This was around 10pm on that sameFriday.
The doctors then advised that she should be transferred to the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF KATH for further monitoring but were quick to add there was no bed available, so we had to wait until 2:30am to get a bed for her at the ICU. During this period, most of us thought the worst situation with regards to my wife’s condition had elapsed.
We returned the next day in batches but she was still unconscious but was responding to treatment. On the third day of being on life support, the doctors started hinting of her organs failing one after the other in rapid succession. They therefore recommended dialysis treatment since she was unconscious and unable to release fluids and solid waste by herself.
Meanwhile out of the 4 dialysis machines available at KATH, only 1 was operational so we had to organise with the aid of the Vice Chancellor of KNUST and her elder sister, dialysis sessions at Kotwi almost on daily basis. We had to hire private ambulances to carry out this assignment since KATH was deficient in this service area also.
Pat never regained consciousness after a series of dialysis session.
On Tuesday June 19th we were scheduled to go for another session but the Head of the ICU advised against it citing the condition of the my wife, the distance and nature of the road at Kotwi as too dangerous so we converged infront of the ICU and prayed as we usually did when she was sent there.
Around 2pm I had a call that my father had also been admitted at KATH after falling rather badly. At this point I just stepped out and intensified my prayers and returned to my wife’s ward.
After a while I was summoned into an office with my Brother in law around 4pm and told that my wife couldn’t make it. This was around 4:15pm. To be sure of what they were saying, I asked to be allowed into the ward to see her myself to be sure of what they were telling me.
My biggest fears were confirmed when I saw my late wife lying on her bed motionless. Grief and emptiness filled me from head to toe but I had to remain composed.
At this time, my Father-in-law, Mr Gyebi and Pat’s other siblings were all infront of the ward and I advised that we send everyone home and take our time to break the news later since this was so much of a daunting task to carry out looking at the repercussion of the aged amongst us there then.
We later confided in some men of God who helped us through the turbulent times at KATH to break the news to the family members with caution.
I met my dear wife Patricia Gyebi also known as Mommie in 1998 at Radio Mercury which was by then being operated by the late Otumfuor Opokuware II‟s cousin.
The station was then located at Abrepo junction where Angel FM is presently. Pat worked at the station as a business newscaster. I was then working with the National Broadcaster GBC as host of the television show MUSIC FOR YOU with Nana Yaw Tenkorang, the late Kwame Owusu Ansah and Kwantwi Barima.
I also reported for the youth television programme called SECOND GENERATION on GBC’s Kumasi network called GCR, I was running the morning and evening shows. The first day I met Pat, I realised she was so unique in every way. The very definition of beauty and eloquence, dignity, humility and intelligence. What took me to Radio Mercury at that particular time was that, Joy FM was just about to set up in Kumasi and they had identified some two talents on Mercury namely Akosua Dwomoh Forkuo and Adwoa Nsiah.
I was given the task as an experienced broadcast journalist to convince them to join what was later to be known as Luv FM. After carrying out that assignment, I asked Pat for her contact but she was hesitant and informed me that she was not available since she was dating someone in Accra but I persisted that we become friends because it had dawned on me that she could be a good future partner.
So Radio Mercury became my new rendezvous after my regular radio shows. I made sure my regular supply of lunch and dinner from the Kiravi Restaurant to her and her lady friends were never in short supply. I asked to visit her at home in Dichemso but she reiterated that her dad was not the type that entertained visitors in the house.
I relaxed a bit but was in constant touch with her via phone. Pat added another job to her schedules at Radio Mercury by joining Crystal TV. At Crystal Television she interviewed Grammy Award mominee Rocky Dawuni to the admiration of her CEO.
Pat later gained admission to KNUST so she had to abandon the media work to pursue another career. She called me one afternoon to come over to her house at Dichemso. I was amazed because she had not done that before.
When I got there, she was in her room weeping so I inquired about what the problem was and she told me that she had just returned from Accra where she found her man cheating on her with another woman in his room. I consoled and asked her to focus on her studies. From that time Room 42 of the KNUST Republic Hall became my new home.
I would go there daily after my shows with actor Chris Attoh who was my colleague and personal assistant at Kapital Radio. Our relationship grew stronger with each passing day because we shared some similar character traits of being mostly quiet and non alcoholics with utmost hatred for smoking and drugs. I remember one particular day I visited Pat on campus and discovered that her ex boyfriend had paid her a visit to apologise for his behaviour in Accra but Pat boldly introduced me to him as her new boyfriend.
We used to hang out and chat a lot between the Unity Hall and Republic Hall junction till the wee hours of the night before parting. We planned putting together the biggest wedding ceremony in Kumasi after she graduated. She planned to go to London to go and work to buy her wedding dress and other stuff for the wedding. We kept in touch with letters and phone calls. Unfortunately on the 31st of January 2001, we lost her affable, amiable and graceful God-fearing mum Mrs. Helena Gyebi.
Auntie Helena was one of the few people in the world who really understood how I function and was such an exemplary Mum. She used to invite me for lunch even when Pat was out of Ghana. An angel who left this planet too early.
So Pat had to return from London abruptly. We promised ourselves that we were going to carry out what we had planned before her Mum passed. So I performed the traditional “knocking” before leaving for my new assignment at Deutsche Welle Radio in Germany in 2003.
I remember very well on the first set date for the marriage, my Dad who had been living most of his life outside Ghana was complaining that she did not have enough information on Pat so he wasn’t going to allow me to carry out the marriage. I pushed himso fiercely he nearly fell (I’ve asked God for forgiveness already).
The Germans will say “Wo gehobelt wird, da fallen Spane” which loosely translates into “you cant make an omelette without breaking an egg”.
I came to Ghana for Xmas holidays in December 2003 and had my marriage with Pat ratified on January 9th 2004 at the KMA under the able stewardship of Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, our parents and Rev Joshua Kas Vorsah. When I went back to Germany I informed my employers that I had married the love of my life and wanted to bring her over but they were adamant, stating per my contract with them that, any marriage with any foreigner other than a German would limit my contract to maximum five years with Deutsche Welle Radio. In other words, my marriage to a German was going to guarantee me an endless contract with DW but I still insisted that I wanted to marry Pat and Pat only. So my contract was cut to 5 years maximum as was stipulated.
I still remember the very first time I brought Pat to Germany, they asked her to return to Ghana after a short period. They even sent someone from the German Embassy to Oduom to find out who Pat was and to know why I was insisting that she joins me instead of marrying a German as a sign of frustrating me to give up but I never did.
I had to call Ghana’s currentPresident Nana Addo who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs to intercede on my behalf with a letter before the final clearance was done for my wife to join me in Germany.
When she came, I worked on a USA visa for her to move to the States to create an opportunity for her and my kids in future but she returned after a few challenges but I sent her back there again after she delivered our second born in London. We all came back after my 5 year contract in Germany but before we came to Ghana, I took another 5 year USA Visa for the four of us just in case life in Ghana got difficult. So she left for the USA again when we all returned to Ghana.
Owing to the kids upkeep, she had to return to Ghana to settle with Dr Kwabena Kesse’s Multi Credit Savings and Loans until her untimely demise. Mrs Patricia des Bordes was a very devoted Christian and a very dedicated mother and wife. Though we had our individual differences like any other marriage worldwide, our deep love for each other was not in question even in trying times.
Once she decided on something, it was very difficult to change her mind which is a bit similar to how I operate too. Mrs Patricia Ama Brago Gyebi des Bordes will be sorely missed but I am very optimistic that she is relaxing in the arms of our Almighty Father God the Creator.
MAY HER SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE!!!! DAMIRIFA DUE AND THANKS FOR A JOB WELL DONE DEAR!!!!
