IN MEMORY OF JUDGE RAPHAEL .B. MAGANGA - DIED 16 AUGUST 1986

Dad, it is exactly 25 years since you went to the Eternal Peace.  It’s not easy to keep going without father love. We are trying so hard to be strong enough to carry on as you would expect us to.  

God’s garden must be beautiful, He always takes the best.  He knew that you were having heart attack. He knew you were in pain, He knew that you would never see the afternoon again.  He saw the road was getting rough; the hills were hard to climb.  So he closed your weary eyes and whispered, “RAPHAEL, Peace Be Thine”.

It broke our hearts to loose you, but you did not go alone, for part of us went with you the day God called you home. Your presence will always be within our hearts and we always think of you in silence, we miss you Dad.

“Those we love remain with us, for love itself lives on, and cherished memories never fade because a loved one’s gone.  Those we love can never be more than a thought apart, for as long as there is a memory, they’ll live on in the heart”

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to loose.  They say time is healer, is it really? Or we just burry our sorrow deeper and deeper! We wonder.  Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

Dad to the world you were just one, to us you were our world.  We are at peace knowing that you are watching over us.  May your soul remain blessed… we will always celebrate your life.  We love you so much Dad.

Fondly remembered by your loving Children Nelly, Gerald, Louisa, Alice, Susan and Andrew, Son in-laws Pascal, Rikard & Peter, grand children Jadden Raphael, Nelly Cassandra, Andrew Esher & Simon, and friends.

Our Prayer

Ever-present God and Father, you know that today’s memories leave us inconsolable.  Sometimes, in the business of our daily tasks, we are able to forget.  But you have given us a sensitive and vulnerable heart.  Visiting a place where we once stood together, a photograph in which everyone is smiling happily, a melody that makes us relive a beautiful experience, a single word spoken in a particular way or when we close the door at home at night… and then, O Lord there is an anniversary like this bitter one today.  It brings renewed pain to our hearts and makes us deeply aware of the emptiness in our lives that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever fill.  Help us to grieve like those who have no hope, but face life with a resolute heart in the knowledge that the loved one we lost is not gone forever, but has a merely become part of the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us at all times.  Thank you that you wipe away the tears from our face with your gently hands and that you give us the courage to continue life without self-pity, but with gratitude for your comfort.  Thank you that we know from experience that you are always there for us.  In the name of Jesus and with thanks giving. Amen

JOHN: 11:25