By Temitope Ojo

Actress, Mercy Johnson-Okojie is a year older on August 28. She clocks 34.

The mother of three has been reminiscing about life lessons so far, and what the death of her mother, who passed on early in May has also taught her.

According to her, no one can teach how to properly mourn a loss or fill up the empty painful, endless hole that death leaves

She wrote on her Instagram page: “When you look into the coming year, you never plan for the worst. You always expect that life will have a way to make itself better…. Sometimes, like this past year has taught me, there are other plans… life simply happens.

“I never expected to lose my mother so soon, and so suddenly, but it happened, life happened.

“No one can teach you how to cry with every fibre of your being and when exactly to stop crying.

“No one can truly teach you how to properly mourn a loss or fill up the empty painful, endless hole that death leaves.

“No one can….No one has that power but God.. Soon, you learn how, How to draw strength from the eyes and the smiles of those that love and truly care for you, You learn to find peace in the breaths you take when you wake up and in even in the taste of pepper soup.

“Sometimes you even learn from a comment or two or fifteen thousand.

You learn how to cherish the great memories you shared, the laughs, the tears, the prayers, the victories.

“You learn that yes, life happens and yes sometimes we are powerless to change our circumstances.

“But as long as we still have life, we will smile again, laugh again, love again and be born again…

“As long as we still have life, we will smile again, laugh again, love again and be born all over again…

Thank you, everyone, for your love and support. Happy birthday to me!”