A LOVE LETTER TO DEATH

Dear Death,

Now, it is time not to mourn, it is time not to jump, it is time not to roll in tears, it is time not to sob, it is time not to gnash teeth, for everybody has witnessed to tears. We live today, not to live forever. We live today, to die another day. It is time to gird the loins and prepare to graduate and bag the ultimate title, RIP, to be conferred by you, death, the ultimate end. Death be proud, for we will all kiss your ass, we will all hug your ugly body, we will all bow to your authority, someday, one day!

A hitching history, a haunting tale, and hazy dreams, all conspire to define nothing and yet, they define life. Nothing is life; life is nothing, a conspiracy theory of pains. Pains, feelings of anomy, of gruesome fear, of tears cascading in bitter drops and of a grin smile full of sorrow. Pains define life, so also joys describe life. In you, we find pain and joy. Pain in that we will miss the departed. Joy in that the departed has left this wicked world, a world made up of evils, evils of the mind and of feelings.

I have learnt lessons from you, of life ephemerality, of evanescence of living, of transience of hope. Inspiration comes with your thought. Your thought once formed an image when I was away from home. The image came still, the image of a figure that looked so much like my mum at the Jommo Kenyatta International Airport. I instantly got your message, the message of reminder, that the one who killed my beloved mum with hunger still has the key to kill now, and forever, with any tool. I have come to terms with you, I fear you no more, I dare you no more, I despise you no more, for I will hold my peace and keep you at bay. For you have the key to kill, death be proud!

You have taken my friends in Jos, you have taken my mum, you have taken a good aunt, Ngozi Nwozor, you have taken 153 people through #DanaAir. Who else can you not take? Death be proud, you have the key to take the whole. People run away from you, yet they submit once you are ready. The more they run away, the more you make resolve to attract them. I won’t write my history without you. I won’t. I won’t tell my tales without you. I won’t. I won’t dream dreams without you. I won’t. Your thought guides my history, your thought shapes my tales, and your thought directs my dreams.

Let me rush, to rush to tell you the truth made from pains. This is the truth you won’t like to hear or to read. But I will rush to tell you. I will say it now or my mouth remains sealed forever. So I will tell you the truth, for we are friends. Here we go.

You can only kill people. You cannot kill their deeds, either good or bad. When you kill, we mourn the dead, but the dead is relieved while we are bereaved. So their deeds are alive, these are what you don’t have the key to kill. Death be not proud, because you don’t have the key to kill deeds. But death be proud, because you have the key to kill people. If I die, my deeds will live forever. Alas, there is hope in Yonder!

So today, I won’t mourn Ngozi Nwozor, I won’t. I won’t mourn #DanaAir victims, I won’t. I will celebrate their exit from this wicked world; I will dance to mark their good deeds. Those who had lived a life of good deeds still live with their deeds. Those who had lived a life of deceit among them have lost it all, these ones, I will mourn, for they are dead but their evil deeds still live.

I will celebrate Ngozi, I will jump in excitement, and yes I represent one of her good deeds. She is dead, her good deeds are alive. You could not kill these, and you will never. When Nigerian government was blinded at the feat I brought the country in 2008, because I wasn’t a Senator’s son or a Minister’s relative, Ngozi Nwozor welcomed me back from Cape Town with a news review in her Pushing Out column in THE NATION newspaper.

With my big ears carefully photo-shopped, standing out on my head like the wings of a dove, aunt Ngozi navigated my life with celestial thoughtfulness, chronicling my foray into freelancing. She made my life an inspiration to other aspiring young writers. My university management took a cue and threw a bash to honour me (This is not typical of OAU. You have to sweat to earn an ‘F’). I am just a drop in the ocean of Ngozi’s good deeds. So when I die too, my deeds will outlive me, either good or bad.

Death, this is the bitter truth I want to tell you. So when I die, I still live. In case you want to rush to kill me before my deeds germinate, it will be a sheer waste of efforts, veer leftward to kill the evil doers in power. My deeds have outgrown the test of time. I am mentoring a movement of peace keepers across the country. My movement is fighting on behalf of the ones you have killed; I am sustaining their good deeds.

So waste no time to kill me when if you do, I will still live. Why not allow me to live till Methuselah?

Yours unfaithfully,

It is me, @Obajeun

PS: This is in honour of Ngozi Nwozor Agbo and the #DanaAir Victims.

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