Death I

I wrote this on the 29th of November 2018 as the 1st part of a series on my facebook page. I eventually wrote 3 parts and no matter how hard I tried to write a 4th part I never could get round to finishing it up and then the pandemic struck and I look back on this and laugh that I had no idea what death was or is. I am re-posting these here so for those of you who have read it, I apologize and hope that I'll be able to write a 4th or even a 5th part soon. 

Death is often a word that brings with it a sense of panic, of doom, a feeling of such helplessness. As a child whenever I asked my mother what killed someone, her answer was always death! It was frustrating then but in reality, that is always the answer to what killed a man.

'It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.' I first read the words from Ecclesiastes as a child and I thought surely no benefit can be found going to a house filled with weeping and no smiles. But with the benefit of time and some wisdom, it has become glaring that death is something that will eventually happen to me and if it is a doorway I need to pass through, what am I doing to make sure I am ready.

I am not morbid by nature, but whenever I hear of deaths , I always wonder why I am still alive. Walking to work every day, I pass by a street corner where a lady met her death and I marvel that day after day, I have passed that same street corner for the last 4.5 years and I am still alive to tell the tale. I think of people who were slain by stray bullets and wonder why the trajectory of those bullets have never been in my path.

When I think of near death experiences, 3 readily spring to mind. The first was as a teenager running through the rain in Obanikoro to get to my Aunt's house. It was the kind of rain that made you wonder if somehow the Atlantic ocean had not been swept up to the heavens and was at that moment being poured out in the large buckets angelic beings use to bath.

I was soaked to the skin and very vividly remember what I was wearing. I ran like someone possessed and just before I got to the junction to turn into my aunt's street, in mid-run, I stopped. I cannot explain how or why I stopped, but I just did and when I looked down in front of me, there was a man-hole without a cover and all the water pouring down fled into it like it urgently needed to escape. I looked down with a sense of astonishment, if I had taken another step I would have been swept down that man-hole and would probably have only been discovered when the smell of my decaying flesh wafted up to those passing by.

The second happened on my way to visit my sister who was pregnant expecting her first child. I had woken up early to go to the motor park to board a bus to Ibadan from Lagos. I took a seat in the first bus at Ojota that I came across and for those of you familiar with motor park touts, you'll recognize the following scenario. After sitting for a few minutes, I very quickly caught on to the games of the touts. For a small fee, they fill up the bus with fake passengers, passengers whose destination is no farther than the steps they would take to sit in the bus and deceive real passengers like me into thinking the bus is almost full. After getting a few more real passengers, the fake passengers begin to vacate their seats one by one. Sensing that I was been played, I got up and went a few yards to see if I would be lucky enough to find a bus ready to move. I was, the very next bus I got into filled up very quickly. I took a seat right behind the driver. That seating position is also a peculiar seat for those who travel often. I had heard it said many times that the best seat to seat in was behind the driver because if he had to swerve to avoid hitting something or someone you would be safe. (don't ask me what the logic behind this is). On this journey, this logic did not hold up. For a soon to be explained reason, I was very uneasy sitting in this bus. I had a niggling feeling I could not put into words. Nothing untoward happened until we were about 40km from Ibadan. What happened next literally had me playing out the next second in slow motion..... (to be continued)