Zenzele Abeni Thornton

07/14/1996 - 07/31/2007

Obituary For Zenzele Abeni Thornton

To meet ZeeZee, to spend just a few minutes in her ebullient presence, was to forever be a changed person. Like a beautiful angel, she was delivered to us 11 years ago, ready to confound the science and medical establishment. "Her condition is incompatible with life," the doctors told her parents. Babies with Trisomy 18 don't even make it through their first month, they said. Their medical journals and survival statistics told us we needed to prepare ourselves because this precious little baby would soon be taken away.

But the Lord had other ideas.

What the medical community didn't know is that He needed this child to demonstrate one of his most basic tenets: That all of God's creatures, great and small, deserve the breath of life. Through Zenzele, He was able to show every one of us that all life is, indeed, a gift that we can never take for granted. To the dismay of her doctors, ZeeZee sailed past her first birthday and then her second. We started calling her the Miracle Baby because her life itself seemed so improbable, so unbelievable, so special. Birthdays three, four and five came and went, and our Miracle Baby started growing into our beautiful little girl, her thick and lustrous hair surrounding those big doe-like eyes and that wide, toothy grin. She was lovely and bubbly, and we were all amazed and thankful for the years He was granting us in Zenzele's presence. For it truly felt like a gift to be around her, to realize how much she changed your perspective on the value and sanctity of life. Rather than pity, Zenzele quickly earned from each of us admiration and thanks.

As birthdays seven, eight and nine came and went, Zenzele began to touch even more lives when she went to school. We already knew the monumental impact she could have on other children by watching her with her sisters, Maia and Imani, and her 10 cousins. Nothing could beat the joy you saw flash across their young faces when they were able to make ZeeZee laugh or smile. When we all gathered together in July to celebrate her 11th birthday with her mom and Meshech in Rock Hill, SC, the big thankful smiles around the room told the story of our gratitude to the Lord for allowing us to spend 11 years with His angel. And so, on July 31st, He decided that it was time for her to join Him.

God wanted his angel back.

Goodbye, precious child. You will live forever in our minds and in our hearts.

Zenzele is survived by ner mother, Adrienne "Jameelah" Cathcart, her father, Gregory "Mdegwa" Thornton, her stepfather, MeShech Cathcart, her stepmother, Kem "Dayo" Moody, her grandparents, Helen "Migozo" and Walter "Chikuyu" Chiles, Shirley and Walter Thornton, Sr., and Linward and Rose Marie Cathcart; sisters, Maia and Imani Cogen; aunts and uncles Angelou and James Ezeilo, Mazi, Mari and Lila Chiles, Walter Thornton, III, Ivy Terrell and Erin Short; and a host of family and friends who will miss her dearly.

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