4:03am April 2023, Death Sang.

It was a cold morning on the 23^rd of April 2023, the morning my life would change forever.

I was getting ready for church at 6:00 am with the light from the small blue torchlight that illuminated my room because it had rained very heavily from midnight till the early part of the morning. I was putting my black belt into the 3^rd hole of my trousers when my phone rang. It was a call from my mum. She told me to make my way to the hospital immediately because she needed to see me. I told her I was getting ready for church and would come once service was over because that is how I have done it for 4 Sundays now. My dad had been in the hospital for close to a month I and my mum had been in the hospital with him but on Sundays, I would go to church and leave for the hospital afterward. That period was a trying period for my family. The stress, the money spent, the emotional and physical torture, and seeing my dad in the state that he was in, was hurtful.

So I decided to go to the hospital first, see my dad leave for church, and go back to the hospital later. My mum told me that my dad needed to do another surgery so I should come. I took my bag and left for the hospital. From the door of my house, I started praying and speaking in tongues until I got to Lasuth.

I walked up the stairs of the BT ward and saw my mum seated on the floor at the entrance. Her back was against the wall. There was no light illuminating the corridor because the weather was still recovering from the rain that fell and the clouds had started to gather again. I took my seat beside her and asked how my dad was. She looked at me, took my hand, and said “Daddy has passed on”. I did not even understand what was going on, I just asked her “Passed where?”. I stood up and started running into the ward to look for my dad. Everything became blurry, as I kept running, all I heard, was my mum shouting to the nurses “Ejor e bami mu, ejoor” meaning: please help me hold her. next thing i knew, two nurses were holding me. I struggled to break free but there was a weakness that shot through my body and in surrender, I stayed still and started looking for him on bed number 8, the same bed his back had been familiar with for the weeks he was admitted. Confused, I looked around but didn’t see him. Then my eyes shifted to the bed opposite bed number 8. That was when i saw that the whole space was covered. The realization dawned on me that the worst had happened. I fell to my knees screaming “NO, my daddy, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I don’t think I have screamed out that loud in my entire life, but in that moment, my heart broke, my lungs gave the cry of despair, my legs crumbled beneath me, and my eyes shut to welcome the darkness that the world had given me so quickly. The scream I let out spelled pain. I felt my mother holding me but I lay there in a fetal position on the ground in my black shirt and green trousers. While my screaming continued, a very angry rain began to fall. As the tears poured from my eyes, the rain poured violently from the sky. The Heavens mourned with me.

I stood up from the ground where I lay and opened the curtain used to shield the living from looking at my daddy who had crossed over to the other side. My hands began to shake when I saw the wrapper he once used to cover his body from the cold was now used to cover his face. I slowly walked to his bed and lay there with him, holding him, calling his name, and asking him why he left. I started praying again, speaking tongues, hoping my prayers in the language of the Holy Spirit would awaken his spirit and return him to me. I hoped the tears falling from my eyes would somehow wake him up. I continued to pray while holding his cold body for 20 minutes. I kept asking him to wake up but he did not wake up. I asked God to please speak Talitha Cumi into my daddy’s ears but the Heavens were silent. so I stayed there holdng him, while the nurses watched in pity for the young girl who had lost her father.

My younger brother fell to his knees by the time he came, wailing and asking “how and why”. The same questions my heart was asking God and the doctors.

10minutes later, two orderlies came and asked to wheel my dad to the morgue; the only place that houses the dead with care before the ground takes them.  My daddy was wheeled by the two orderlies while my mum and my brother solemnly walked behind them with swollen eyes and more tears still falling from our eyes. He was put into the hearse and driven to the morgue. We walked in the rain and made our way there.

When we arrived at the morgue, one of the Morgue attendants wrote something on a plaster and put it on my daddy’s forehead. I moved closer to see what it was, lo and behold it was my daddy’s name written there. I guess that was done because, since he can not answer to his name again, they plastered what was his identity on his forehead. We moved towards the reception area to meet with the people who speak for the dead, I filled in the information that was required and was given an envelope to hold onto any time I wanted to visit him. I opened the envelope to see they had given him a new identity. My daddy who was once Chief Titus Olufemi Eboda became Serial Number 729.

In that moment, I understood the fickle nature of life, our existence and everything we hold dear. Our names, positions, wealth, and status mean nothing the day we draw our last breath because death comes for us all and nothing will go with you.

My daddy was fine on Saturday, he was happy and playing, he died at 4:03 am on Sunday the 23^rd of April 2023 holding my mummy’s hands with tears in his eyes. My mum told me she didn’t tell me he had died at the time he did because she wasn’t sure how to break the news until i got to the hospital. My daddy struggled to stay, while the nurses performed CPR on him but death snatched him away so painfully.

Today makes it a year since death hovered over my household and whispered my daddy’s name. So we remember him today and every day. We pray for his spirit and we know that he is resting the the bossom of God.