March 13
March 13
El mi, Today would have been your eighty-second birthday, but it was not to be. I’ve never stopped replaying the events of that most awful Thursday, May 20, 2021, when things started to move rapidly towards a crescendo that was destined to happen under 48 hours: from asking to delay the medical procedure appointment slated for 5:30 a.m. that day “a little longer” to a return home that saw you refuse all entreaties of something to eat. You seemed not willing nor that able to fight any more although it never for a moment occurred to me that it would be your last real day.
Oh, how we all miss you everyday: the gentle but firm words of advice,
the many plans you and I still thought we had, the dreams we still had to add to those zillions of memories accumulated for over fifty-one years of real friendship, of love, of adventures, all of which we would replay and replay, even the most better-forgotten ones. Never, as we had privately promised each other - beyond those Church vows - had a you-made-us-do-it from either nor why-did-this-happen? As I would sulk or, worse - cry, if the wrong decision was from me - you’d say one of those outrageous things - in real Oyo dialect that you knew would crack me up.
For the third time after July 30, 2021, I travelled to the place where you were returned to Mother Earth today, your place, that will also become mine, when my own last trumpet shall sound.
Sleep on, most dear one. We all feel the burden of your absence all the time: your words of encouragement, your depth of understanding of whatever struggles each member of our family had, your kindness and empathy, the wit and ability to lighten up our gatherings, perhaps what most miss most - your ability to bring laughter. Me? I trudge on.
Alao, Omo ‘Jesa ko ri’di isana … omo Owa Oluyeye, aw-kare, o, o se’ye! Just flew away like that, and, perhaps like that bird whose picture you took one summer day in Oslo almost two decades ago, your spirit is probably perched somewhere close by whenever a few or all of us are gathered, watching …
Sun re, o, dearest, till we meet to part no more, on Ressurrection Morning.
OMOJUSABI, Omo Eleja Otumukeke.