Memoir of Bereavement

My ordeals about death have revealed that the borderline between life and death is like a gap in two flickering of eyes. Because I do wonder why someone not too long seen is reported death; why people just die like that without any transparent augury. I know that is how I will also die one day. I can see death in my shadow, haunting me like a revengeful ghost. I have been waiting for that day when I will be proclaimed death like others whose deaths have preceded mine.

As someone growing in a society where the epiphany of death being close to us than our jugular vein is blatant, I can say I am the testimony and prophecy of death, roaming around the streets drunk, taking souls with bravura. I have garnered manifold memories of bereavement enough to quench my persistent questioning of the vile philosophy that surrounds death. I am a memory of relatives stuck to death by over-speeding vehicles; of friends, electrocuted or of ones butchered by thugs in Ibadan or Lagos while on the mission of survival; of distant family members who slept but never woke up and of somersaulted cars that claimed lives within a minute.



I am the manifestation of neighbours hit by straying bullet of wild police during protest against the tyrannical government; of travellers sent down to the gullet of their waiting grave by the rifle of thieves on the motorway express. The ache is still in my heart. I am the memory of those whose their death met them on their sick bed.

Death is inevitable as my mother always said. I came to believe this when I was 15. That was in 1975- the year I was told that I had a brother who died while trying to carry me, a toddler of 2 years from the brink of our dilapidated staircase, about to fall. He fell instead and died. He died my death. I was stunned. Nobody ever told me there was once someone who had been part of the family before, perhaps because of the circumstance that surrounded the gory incident.

Joseph, my brother and the first born of the family was who I came to know while trying to keep the room tidy on that fateful day. I was helping my father arrange his dusty shelf when I stumbled upon an old album already ants-infested. The thing was as aged as beard of Noah. I took it near me, flipping through its pages one after the other. I saw my mum and dad when they were young. Both looked like they were not, for they had already grown a little bit aged. Browsing the collection towards the end in an elated ecstasy something struck me inside my cranium- a picture of someone whom I could say I resembled from head to toe. He looked like me!

The young man was very handsome and tall, with her gap-toothed smiles mesmerizing- the ones that could make a woman lose herself in coyness. He looked simple in that picture, holding me firm close to the left-side of his chest. His hair well-cut and his cloth well ironed. He wore a grey jacket cloth and black shoe excellently polished. That day should be on Christmas day, because I could see the red Santa Claus cap on my head. He should be 14 years old than me with my own mental calculation.

With the picture I quickly rushed down to my mum's room for clarification. She was silent. Two minutes later the silence was broken by a serious sigh. “that is your brother. He died when you were young" she said. “what killed him?" I inquired curiously.

“It is a long story. I will tell you when you are 18." she responded. “because of what Mum? What is there not to be told? I protested with my voice echoing through the whole room. Mummy was silent again, and tears were gushing out of her fragile cheeks. What a mother, a passionate one. She had known I was at the peak of my anger. I took that from our great grandfather, Pa. Demola who was reported to be easily angered when he was alive.

I was also quiet and the whole room was reticent like ancient necropolis. We both looked each other in an inexplicable silence to the point that if an atom of sand fell its sound would be heard without any distinct attention. I knew I had hit a wounded place inside her heart.

Mother looked my face. Her eyeballs changed to red and swollen like a piece of bread in water, while the tears were still coming. I couldn't help but join my mum on the queue of tear. Although she never spoke, I already understood the situation and the atmosphere of the room had told me what she would say. She placed her hand on my head, rendering the praise-poetry of our lineage. She eventually talked.

"That is your brother Joseph. He died when you were 2years old, still a crawling baby who loved doing dangerous thing as stubborn boys of your age then would do." she said. “He fell off the staircase" she continued “while trying to save you from falling. We rushed him to the nearby hospital where he was confirmed dead, having established that he struck his head with one of the banisters."

"while saving me?" I was puzzled. "Yes" Mum responded with clear conviction. “She died your death and that was a long time ago." she continued with a slight smile. The smile, to me, was to lighten my mood or delete the pain of me killing my brother.

"but why didn't you tell me all these years? Why did you keep this picture away from my seeing?" I asked. "you want us tell you that? You are still young. Don't think you are old enough to understand the whole life. You still have a long way to go. But remember that death is inevitable. We shall go where your brother goes, and there we shall re-learn love again at the right side of our Lord Jesus Christ." she replied. That was the last thing she said before facing what she was doing-packing some clothes together, separating old from new ones. It was on Sunday evening. That night was sour in our house.

That was how I knew of my brother. He wanted to study Medicine and Surgery at the prestigious University of Northwest when he grew up, but death truncated the dream. That is death, the boastful dreams-killer.

It was already 9:30pm. Mum couldn't cook due to the serious conversational engagement with her. Daddy wasn't around; he travelled, so it was my mum and me, the only male child and my little sister in her cradle, sucking her fingers in sumptuous comfort. We went to bed with our stomach empty. Such situation made someone filled up.

The following morning at exactly 8am when the rising sun was almost chasing the morning dew inside, they said Mama Deborah was dead, after a few weeks of serious illness and Mallam Bala, a famous jovial and well-loved beggar who usually played with the children was crushed to death by one over-speeding trailer while finding his morning solace on the street.

"Ina lilayhi wahina ilay rajiuna. From Allah we come and from Him we shall return. Mama Deborah was a nice woman. It is saddened that death snatched her from us after a long battle with heart-attack." said Alhaji Sumaila, a daily thrift-collector who broke the bad news to us on that very Monday morning. I was about set for school when he brought that sorrowful news. I left home with my heart encumbered with grief. The grief was not only because those who were reported death were good people, but also because of having a week laden with sadness. Granny had told us that what started our Monday would end the whole week. That was the myth which we believed in, because it was real.