2018- So Much For A New Year

December 31st, 2017.

The time is 10:15. My Mum, brother and I are waiting for a couple of minutes to pass by before going to the church just beside my house for the annual cross over service into 2018. My Mum’s phone rings. I pick it up and see that it’s my Aunty. ‘Oh she has even called several times. How didn’t we hear?’ I muttered to myself in Yoruba, my native language. I hurriedly make my way to my Mum’s room to give the phone to her. ‘Mummy’, I say softly a couple of times before giving her the phone. ‘Mummy Branco n pe yin’ Mummy Branco is calling you. Mummy Branco is what we call my Aunty by. Most people know her as my second Mummy, which is very correct. 

I watch as my Mum answers the call, definitely still sleepy. Her voice and eyes would clear in seconds when I hear her say ‘Ehn!’ in a high pitch. I definitely knew something was wrong. She hurriedly hangs up and shouts that my Aunty’s husband is in the hospital and on life support and we had to leave immediately. I feel a rush of coldness on my body at this point as we both frantically move around the house to go to the hospital. I have to wake my brother, he is sleeping too. I feel bad for disturbing his sleep but I will do anything for my Aunty. He jumps up surprised hearing her name on our lips. We lock the house doors in a hurry and he drives us to the hospital.

11:20pm

My Aunty is barefoot. Her scarf has fallen off. She turns to me and asks me to promise her nothing will happen to her husband. I am numb and can’t say anything. She starts to weep. I hold her and start to cry too. My brother goes in to see him and my Mum prays in the hospital lobby. 

My Dad left the house since the early evening to the church in town. He does not know all that is going on. His numbers are not going through. My Aunty calls all our family members, even those in my hometown, to pray for her husband and beg God to not take him just yet. I feel a dejavu looking outside the hospital into town: the nights my Mother told me she spent in the hospital because of me, on festive nights. How she’d stand in that same lobby, look over town and cry for being in the hospital while watching the festivities and firecrackers displaying. 

11:57pm

There is a church close to the hospital, we decide to go there. My Aunty begs us to help her beg God not to take her husband just yet, that if He spares him, she’d give thanks. We go into the church to pray into the new year and my Mum says she saw something unusual. She saw my Uncle’s ‘spirit’ trying to make its way back into the hospital (into his body) but couldn’t go in. We intensify prayers at this point and left the church to go see how he is faring.

January 1st, 2018.

1:20am

The Doctor on duty has gone to church for service. The medical personnel on ground report that he is stable and there is nothing to worry about. We go home to rest for some hours.

6:00am

I wake up to a loud scream, followed by loud conversations and mumbling. I couldn’t figure it out. I move out of my room and the first thing I hear is ‘o ti ku o!’ from my Aunty. He’s dead. Her husband is dead. First day of the year, she lost her husband and they brought her to my Father’s house to break the news to her. I find it hard to take in. People start to come to our house and she wails uncontrollably, asking for her sons to be brought to her. I watch helplessly as she holds unto them like her life depended on their breath. 

I’m leaving for camp about two weeks later and she looks intensely into my eyes and starts to cry, before hugging me. I knew that I had to stay alive, come what may. She said, ‘Olorun aa so e, aa tun rira lagbara Olorun’.  God will keep you, we shall see again by the grace of God.

It will be a year in a couple of days of her widowhood and I am proud of how tough she proved herself to the world. 

She really loved her husband and it was so sad to see him go just like that.

Thank you for reading 😊