THE REALITY OF OUR END

Once when I was still a pop freak as most youths of my generation were, I was an astute follower and freak of lyrics pouring forth the vocal cords of pop artistes. A rapper of repute known as Curtis Jackson_ 50cent once posited through one of his songs that “death gotta be easy coz life is hard.” This amidst other lyrics got to me so well that I began to see images of dead people rolling on and off so easy like a slide in contrast to how they struggled to live. Words borne out of the speaker’s experience_ an experience that no single person has a monopoly of. Words portraying the fact that life is a struggle. More so, is the fact that for most people, seeing the next moment is a luxury whilst the luxury of some others is not in the witnessing and participation in tomorrow’s events. Their luxury is basking in the acquisition of more wealth whilst in wealth and affluence.
The struggle, hustle, toil, sweats and all that which man goes through for what? To what end? To stay alive? Well, it’s more like it_ staying alive. Now let’s move on. Have you ever been to a hospital and at that time of your arrival, the only welcoming you get is the whining and wailing voices of women and sometimes men who before your coming have been worn down by the sorrowful departure of a loved one? Again, as if that’s not a worse off scenario, like sunrays bathing window blinds, your sight again falls on yet another patient whose life span hangs a hair strand far from death’s grip? You see him or her struggling with every muscle in the body to keep drawing breath. Surrounded by loved ones whose next source of joy is that the patient survives the current reality of the moment. If you’ve not been there am sure I’ve been able to relive such situations before your mind’s eyes through the instrumentality of my pen.
Amazing is that despite these almost impossible situations to surmount, a lot of people survive but the dismay is not in how intense the situation was but how some people meet their end even in the height of good health and best of mental and physical shape is another awing concept that further buttresses the reassuring tendencies of death’s prolific prowess.
When I was about age sixteen, there was a woman though old, she was very virile to say the least. Lively, friendly though a strict disciplinarian, she lived a life that made her presence heavily felt by the sundry. She was smart and in fact too agile for her age. One fine Friday afternoon after she had sold her moi-moi, she had washed up, observed the mandatory prayers and decided to take a nap. That was it. Did I forget to mention that I saw her performing ablution while I was going to my aunt’s shop? Yes, I did see her and like always after greeting mama she’d with her stern but caring voice almost ask after my entire generation and ancestors __lol! That’s how the aged roll back in the village those yesteryears. She took a nap and eased away from this world when the imminent end touched down on her that same day.
Many a time when we hear of someone’s death especially one who is presumed too young, the preceding exclamations take the form of “ah! God forbid” or “I will not die young!” I use to be a student of this school of people until the question “did you know you’d live or exist before you were created?” hit me. Pardonez moi for am not trying to be holier than thou. Even the holier-than-thous are not immuned to the dawning imminent end as the end in its abstraction is a continuum that will end come the moment the Creator deems fit. People slip, some slump, some lie down while others crash into death’s ever welcoming open gates. Wonder why popes, saints and of course prophets didn’t live to see today? _ death.
Some of us have wished to die, others actually took steps towards transforming deathly thoughts to action through suicidal attempts. Some like me in the past have actually dared death by praying her to take me in a poem I once wrote_ nothingness. But the aftermath of such attempts most times is that we are either going to where she waylays us or that time has not permitted her to so do the wishes we nurture.
Many a time we hear of someone who left house-A and in an attempt to cross the road to house-B is run over by a vehicle and end of story. We begin to assume and presume in our own understanding that if Nnamdi had minded his business in Onitsha, boko-haram won’t have killed him in a church in faraway Borno. Oh! If Rebecca had not aborted the pregnancy, she’d still be living. If Usman didn’t become a soldier, he won’t have died in the war. If Rukevwe stayed at home, he won’t have died in the explosion from the vandalized pipeline. If Bola had not gone to that university the fracas that ensued between rival cults won’t have killed him. While we bask in these thoughts of lamentation, we forget that some in a bid to attain a heightened health meet their end. What about Michael Jackson, Stella Obasanjo and a host of others? Some flee the precarious situations back home and in a bid to go overseas end up under seas as food for sea animals and manure for sea plants.
See! A tree must remain green. For this to happen, green leaves must become yellow, brown and wither off for new green leaves to sprout.
Whilst life is not certain and more so hard for most people to sustain, death is a reality and in fact the realest feature of our existence.
In truth we are all living mobile manures, waiting to feed the earth and it will suffice to say and I dare say that one’s life is what precedes him/her even after death.
Live a noteworthy life!
__Prince Jeremiah Kadiri