A mother’s devotion to her son delivered through a nursing career
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Before Josphine Lokai became a nurse, she was a mother beside a hospital bed in Kenya, watching her 16-year-old son Arnold grow weaker by the hour and praying he would live.
For the last nine months of Arnold’s life, Josphine stayed by his side. Arnold had non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but the Kenyan health system did not know that yet. There were blood transfusions, a bone marrow biopsy and two months in intensive care. The boy who had been away at boarding school became so ill he could no longer walk.
Josphine did not yet have the clinical knowledge she would later acquire in Canberra. She was trying to understand what was happening to her son, searching for answers on Google while he suffered intolerable pain. Nothing could prepare her for losing him.
In the grief that followed, Josphine struggled to get out of bed, or eat. She recalls sleeping on Arnold’s grave in their village. For a time, the loss seemed to leave little room for anything else.
Josphine and her friend Sally who was instrumental in helping her achieve her dream of studying nursing in Australia
Yet Arnold’s illness also showed her how much people needed care – and how helpless a family could feel when someone they loved was suffering. Josphine volunteered at a cancer clinic in Kenya, where the patients’ experiences brought back painful memories of her son. She wanted to help, even as she was struggling herself.
Then in 2017, aged 38, Josphine came to Australia to change her life and fulfil a promise to honour her son.
Through the gentle encouragement of her friend Sally Ndiwa, who was studying in Adelaide, Josphine applied to study nursing in Canberra, to learn everything she could, to begin again and dedicate her life to caring for the sick and dying. She arrived knowing no one, carrying grief into a city that would immediately support her, and eventually help her find a way forward.
With barely any money, Josphine found her first warm embrace at the Canberra Institute of Technology, where she found support to get accommodation and to establish her study habits. She obtained her Certificates III and IV in ageing before progressing to a Diploma of Nursing. She then matriculated into the University of Canberra, working in aged care and disability care, then spent two years as an enrolled nurse at the University of Canberra Hospital. In 2023, she graduated from the University of Canberra with a Bachelor of Nursing.
But those qualifications tell only part of the story. Josphine had to confront her grief along the way. Working in a hospital setting brought constant flashbacks.
Even the mannequins Josphine used during her pracs could take her mind to her son’s bedside. An oncology placement was particularly difficult: the patients reminded her of Arnold, and she found herself breaking down constantly. She wanted to become a nurse, but the work took her back to being a frightened mother.
“There were some moments when I would go straight back to being by Arnold’s bedside and I couldn’t speak; I would have to leave because I couldn’t stop crying.”
Josphine finds joy in providing end-of-life care
Support mattered and Josphine has nothing but praise for her teachers at CIT and UC. She was provided with formal counselling at UC, and her lecturers moved mountains to allow her to change placements and find settings where she felt safe enough to learn.
Over time, she began to feel stronger. And she made it through – for Arnold.
As a registered nurse, Josephine has worked at Clare Holland House and now works at North Canberra Hospital. Her experience spans palliative care, medical-surgical nursing, emergency, mental health and aged care.
In 2023, Josephine returned to Kenya and dedicated her nursing qualification to Arnold at his graveside. She celebrated with family and friends, honouring the son whose life had set her on this path.
Now, through the Arnold Foundation that she established, she supports people with terminal illness in Kenya. She sends money from her salary home to help. Her dream is to open Arnold Hospice Care, bringing the knowledge she has gained in Canberra to people who need comfort and support at the end of life.
The words she associates with that dream are “walking the journey together”.
Josphine continues to learn, building her confidence and the practical skills she wants to take back with her to Kenya.
“It has been a truly fulfilling journey, not only providing clinical support but also appreciating the little things that make a significant difference in patient care. Simple acts such as knocking before entering a room, introducing myself, seeking consent, providing pressure area care and oral hygiene, or simply holding a patient’s hand can bring comfort, dignity, and reassurance.The smallest acts matter.”
And it is end-of-life care that holds a particular meaning for her. Where she once felt broken by another person’s suffering, Josphine now finds fulfilment in being there for them.
“I talk to them even if they can’t talk back,” she says. “I am here for them.”
“When I work it feels like this is what I am supposed to be doing”.
Josphine’s qualifications cannot undo her son’s suffering or return the years they should have had together. But nursing has given her a way to respond to that loss – with knowledge, patience, and care for someone else’s beloved parent, friend, or child.
