09.01 HRS, 30th October
The biggest risk we all take in life and destiny is sleep. I was going through my journal yesterday and I saw one of my writings in the journal I did while my stay in Taraba state of Nigeria lasted. This writing was originally done June 2nd 2009. I hope you find it interesting reading:
As I sit on my students’ bench and table in Kwambai, the sleepy village in Taraba state where I presently serve my country, Nigeria, I’m kind of remembering the photo finish that my day was yesterday. Full and lots of activities and lots of strenuous exercises.
The way I drifted off to sleep and finally dreamland yesterday was shocking. Is that how we sleep not to wake up again? Na wa O!
So all the ambitious rants and plans just end up like that. I mean it could even have finished before starting. Yes it can, at least you sleep. What happens if one day I sleep and wake up in the other world, a world farther than dreamland?
I’ve never visited there though but I know that other world is not a world of dreams, not a world of ambitions, not that world of rat race where we the hustle and bustle ends nowhere.
Do you want to know the truth? Yesterday night made me think of my life in that other world where the only thing you will not do is WORRY. That world where you don’t have to bother about paying bills – electricity, water, children’s fees, cable TV bills and even ashewo and gigolo bills.
That world where the school you attended and the level of your education does not matter. The world in which you do not need a wife to make you happy; where you do not need a girlfriend not to talk of her getting angry because you have not called her today. A world different from this in all areas and ramifications.
Truth be told, I got scared when I woke up this morning feeling so scared. What if I drifted into that eternal sleep, what would have happened? Okay, people would’ve cried abi? Is it all of them that will cry because they feel good about me? NOPE!
Many of the tears (if I get any) would be for people’s selfish end. That guy who thought we could have done something together and has now seen the hope of that faded. That beauty that has been swaying her generously loaded bust and hips to attract me would cry because she finally would not have that chance. Those folks whose moods improve when they see me would also spare me a sob or two although it will not be because they love me, it’ll be because of what they’ll miss in me.
The good thing however is that no one, I mean nobody is irreplaceable in life. Some folks would be like “you see, see where he has ended it after all the posings and formings”. “I think we told him to relax a bit and live less on the fast lane”. Some would even be indifferent, “too bad he’s dead”, they’ll say.
But wait a minute, can you try write your OBITUARY yourself? Be honest with yourself, you know where you have been good and otherwise. Your obituary is not that glossy poster they put in front of your house and office when you die, it is not what people write in the condolence register (na lie full that register). Your obituary, my obituary, our obituary does not even have to relate to what happened in the mortuary, it is what people say of the kind of life you lived – “that boy was just wonderful, why did I not allow him to get a feel of me?”, young Eves would say. A lot of other people would say other stuff like “Did he forget that the end would come one day?”
Try evaluate yourself in a very honest way. As for me, I know how mine would read; I know the BUTS and FLAWS; I know the positive side of it. What I want to do is change my buts to a more positive side so that when I sleep and wake in another world one day, I’ll look at you and you and hear you speak well of me because life after death is not the number of houses you built while you bestrode the land; not the number of girls you had; not the number of guys that chased after you; it is not the number of folks that cry before you are planted; it is even not how attractive, unique and beautiful your glass casket looks. It is what folks say after you are gone.
What will be said of you? You’re asking me? I’ll still be around for some more time but I’ll make sure people say good and remember me for good me when I just go and long after I am gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment