THE INEVITABLE DEATH:THE UNENDING GRIEF IN MY LIFE.

In the early hour of March 27th 2017, I came out of the bathroom and saw my phone ringing on my bed .The caller was my mum , I picked up the call and the next thing I heard from her “ Your uncle is dead”. I dropped the phone,screamed and busted into tears. My friends gathered around me and I still could not believe my favorite uncle is dead. The cold selfish death snatched him from the earth.

I knew he was sick, I visited him twice during that period. At that period I ascertained he was not the same person I shared my childhood memories with. The conversation between us was about regrets and how those he trusted betrayed him. I knew he was heartbroken and counting his days on earth.

My Uncle (AbdulMalik BabaTunde Ogunlaja) was energetic during his life time. I shared beautiful childhood memories with him than what I shared with my parents.

After the news of his death I took permission from the school authority to visit my family at home. I stepped into his compound and I was showed his burial ground ,that moment I wept uncontrollably. I was heartbroken and I mourned his death because celebration is invisible.

As years goes by ,the flash of the memories we shared together linger in my heart . The undeniable facts of how much I missed him especially riding on his back when I was little. The tales by moonlight stories of “Cunning and Greedy Tortoise” “Why the Tortoise has a Cracked Shell” “Why the Monkey looks like Human” e.t.c.

“The story of the Apartheid regime in South Africa”,”The Great Shaka The Zulu”,”The British Invasion of Lagos”,”Nigeria ,The colonial period and the military regime in Nigeria”,”The fall of Oyo Empire e.t.c”.

My uncle was an architect and a farmer who died at the age of 54. I enjoyed eating his farm produce. Sometimes I pray to God to see my uncle. in my dream, occasionally I converse with myself if he is in a better place! Did he miss me? Does he know I am heartbroken?. A Rhetorical question to myself.

Then the thought of him reincarnating to another place! or may be he does not miss those he left behind and he is living his best life in a new world.

I battled the urge not to look at his pictures because I could not resist the urge of not grieving his death. Sometimes I pretend my late uncle never existed just to ease the hurt in my heart. The pretence was futile because memories does not die,human does.

Death is inevitable and I believe when human dies,it is only their body being buried but their soul lives eternal. For some of us who lost our love ones,our lives does not feel the same way to us again. A cruel unending phase that can not be erased from us.