March 3, 2025 / ODUSOLA AYOMIKUN 

Farewell Papa. 

The story begins at a quiet cemetery, it was a Tuesday and already past mid-day. The evening drew closer, beginning with a change in color of the sky to a sudden tar-black with the large clouds binding up to form much bigger clouds.   

Up until now the sky had been postcard perfect with the cool air and ackward silence being a cemetery. The beautiful cocktail-blue shade of the sky was now beginning to darken into a gravel grey, and in what seemed like a few seconds, the clouds had formed large pillows blotting out the old-gold colour of the sun.      

Then began the wind, which at first blew with mild intensity and soon became strong enough as it carried and transported dry leaves and little weights in haphazard motion in the air, then suddenly the whirling stopped and the rain began with a pitter-patter which soon turned into a heavy downpour.

          

All this while, as if a statue, she was standing there near the grave; she had been staring at the tomb on a spot she'd been for about an hour since the burial rites ended. Her context dispelled much fear and anxiety than hope while her fragile mind was far away in her small troubled world.

          

The rain continued on steadily with a much mild downpour. She was obviously aware of the new changes in her environment; the incessant downpour, she could feel rain drops beating sharpl as they hit her fragile skin, she was but lost  in oblivion and could only wonder; rhetorically, the reason things had to happen the way they did.

         

It was just some couple of hours ago, she'd witnessed the religiously ordained laying to rest of the only person that mattered most to her. During 

the funeral, the officiating Priest had blessed and admonished;

"We should be cheerful and give glory"he said "cause death is a passage to eternal glory"

      

The dead had lived a good life, that everyone knew but how much more the glory to the pain of seeing a loved one go, never to be seen again. The piteous expressions on the faces of the symphatizers held in height the memories they had of the deceased as a lot of people were present at the site.

          

The burial began with a service in honour of the dead at their resident church and ended with laying to rest of the deceased at the state cemetery, he served as an high ranking official of the state so had a plot reserved in his honour.

     

"We're so sorry for what happened to your Dad, He was our best commandant" the Inspectors General said while speaking with her after the service.

     

"He was a rare gem, we're so sad he's gone too soon" someone else had also sympathized.

          

Though her dad had died just a few days ago, her sorrow and loneliness had begun that fateful day at school, she could remember how she was being summoned to the principal's office early that morning to receive the shocking news of her precious Dad crashing in a ghastly road accident.

         

The events of that day held in heights the beginning of her plight and she right from that day, had foreseen her most feared moments. Moments when she would be all alone and there by the grave she stared horribly at the manifestation of her fears.

    

"Why did you have to do this to me Baba? " she shouted, her eyes up to the sky.

     

"Why did you have to leave me alone" she agonized even more terribly.

          

By now the rain had reduced into the pitter patter with which it began. She shivered as she'd been drenched by the shower and could feel the stream of the cold rain dancing on her back, she feared she could fall I'll but didn't care, if it came to that she would love to meet her Baba again. She pulled her coat more closely around her, it was now soaked and dripping wet, her kneels ached badly from the long period of standing.

          

She thought about her life which now resembled the story her Dad usually told her. The story was of a girl who was homeless and poor. She'd stopped by a stream one day and prayed to God about her circumstances and she soon got answers to her prayers, as she was adopted by good and loving parents. Then she became happy.

    

"Ann...Ann!" she heard her name in the rain, and turned to see Uncle Kay calling. He was standing a few meters away from where she stood.

     

"Just take me!" she said looking up into the sky. 

Her Uncle ran to meet her, and he covered her with a coat he had in hand.

     

"It's okay Ann, it's going to be okay" He kept on repeating the words in her ears as he held her shaking body.

     

"You'll be fine Ann" she stopped crying, but one could hear the pounding of her heart and her little sobing cackles.

          

He held unto her as they moved towards the car which was parked nearby. She heaved a sigh as she folded her length into the cool interior of the Lexus ES 250.Out in the rain from where she'd just been rescued, she could see a man carrying on his shoulders a little girl as they hurried towards safety. 

The little girl was all through the run beaming as if she were on a horse. Ann couldn't resist but reciprocate the smile of the little girl when she turned towards her. Her smile was mild and she waved back at the child as the car zoomed off.