GEINGOS: Geingob spoke about living a fulfilled life

President Hage Geingob started talking to his wife about about football a few hours after he was informed by his doctors that his health had worsened.

“We were talking about Liverpool and soccer. And eventually he says to me, ‘What more can I ask for?

I have done everything I had to do,’” former first lady Monica Geingos recoundted on Gondwana Collection’s ‘The Conversation’ podcast.

Geingos says the late president calmly accepted his terminal cancer diagnosis.

“The day Hage was told there was a problem, I have never seen something like that. He asked only one question: ‘Is it terminal?’ The answer was yes. Then he asked, ‘Will I be able to finish my term?’ The answer is a story for another day, and he didn’t react,” Geingos says.

Geingos describes how the two of them spent that day driving around Windhoek, discussing everyday topics such as soccer.

On 4 February, Geingob died at the age of 82 at the Lady Pohamba Hospital in Windhoek with his wife and children at his side.

In January, the Presidency announced that Geingob had begun treatment following the discovery of “cancerous cells” during a routine colonoscopy and gastroscopy.

From the moment of his diagnosis until his passing, Geingob remained at peace, Geingos says.

“He had such serenity, from that moment right up until everything that happened.

He had such calm, he had such peace and he passed with such dignity.

Because we don’t control how we go, but we can control how we live.

And if any of us had a choice, we’d go the way Hage went – with inner peace.” Geingos says.

She says her late husband’s peaceful transition was a testament to the way he lived his life.

“Hage was a good person. He was such a good person, that is the only thing that gives me comfort.

There’s many things I struggle with today, about him getting sick and going the way he did.

I struggle. But one thing that gives me peace is how he went and how he was mourned.

It gives me a lot of peace. That is beautiful,” Geingos says.