WHEN HE DIED!

Seyi and I were siblings,  at first we were best friends. I am older than Seyi with 2 years; but he acts like an elder brother to me.


Seyi what do you think about this hair?
Please go and loosen it and collect your money back.
You don go make cheap hair again,  come de ask me,  is my hair fine? - He was someone I could get and honest opinion from.


What happened to the fan yoghurt in the fridge?  who the hell took it?
please stop shouting!  Seyi took it. Before I close my eyes and open it better go and return it.
Few minutes later………..
Seyi do you want yoghurt? -I can’t be mad at him for so long



I am going to the mall with my friends; dont  even try it because am stuck at home today.
Babes just cancel the mall thing, next time


Mehn! I am hungry I want to eat mama cass  jellof rice with kfc fried crispy chicken
I am so hungry I could eat a large cow tied up for ramadam festival
He completes my sentence.


We had each other’s back.

If you mess with you, Seyi will mess with you.

Seyi was my hero, my life and everything, I can never imagine a life without him

From primary, secondary, university we were always in the same school. We were even in the same faculty,  from buying of books, going to banks, registration. Seyi was in charge.


Can you believe that by second year in university I didn’t even know what it means to sign course form?

So I depended on Seyi for everything

I remember one time in secondary school, a group of girls wanted me to join their clique or they would bully me for the rest of my days in school. So I told Seyi.
After Monday morning assembly, the girls approached me for an answer and I said NO! They began pushing, taunting and threatening me. Seyi appeared with some of his friends, I remember the girls running to their classes..


Seyi has a heart shaped face with a chiseled jaw line; his large brown piercing eyes were spaced evenly apart sitting below his bushy brows. A long nose hooked onto the center of his face just above those lips that mesmerized my friends. He was light skinned, tall and well built for his age. He indeed is a handsome boy but he is my brother.




One Saturday afternoon Seyi came out of his room and shouted bota (that’s what Seyi called me because I as slightly fat, yes slightly). We will go out tomorrow. Okay I said!

I stood by his door as he was dressing up, then he said "how do I look?  I smiled because he was looking exceptionally dapper today. Where are you going to, he walked past me and went to my mum in the parlor and asked the same question again?


You are the most handsome man I have ever seen, all the girls you meet today will be interested in you. Hmmm Seyi was the favorite child in my house. He was loved by all. In a family of 4, Seyi was the name called when the goodies arrive.



Where are you going to mummy asked him. I am going to a friend’s house .it was our second year second semester and exam were approaching, he needed to collect some materials. He left the house with the car. Considering Seyi was the favorite child he started driving even before he was 18. He was the only person allowed to drive my father’s car.


Around 8 o clock,  Seyi parked in front of the house and honked the car, so we knew he was around. few minutes later my mummy told me to call Seyi to eat, but I didn’t find Seyi outside.  I checked everywhere but didn’t see him. I went back inside and told mum. It was a regular thing for him to stay out late ,so we didn’t bother.

Minutes turned into hours then we slept off. Exactly 1:55pm my phone rang, I picked up the person said

Seyi was involved in an accident, what?

Then the call ended, I waited the call came again 

Seyi was rushed to the hospital he was involved in an accident, which hospital? I asked

My mum came out; who is calling you by this time of the day, my ringtone was Faze kolomental.  So didn’t blame her for waking up, and my estate is too quiet even monks wouldn’t live there. So I told her the caller said Seyi was involved in an accident.

The call came again, I said Seyi was involved in an accident and was rushed to Believe hospital yaba.

What was Seyi doing in yaba?

Did you hear me?  (the caller was now frustrated that I wasn’t replying and my network was bad, he was fuming if MTN cuts this call again I won’t call you back)

I answered yes! I heard you.

So we waited till 4 because the estate gate man was arguing that we should not worry that since was in the hospital that he was probably ok, so we should wait
Around 6 we left for yaba.

Remember Seyi was the favorite child; my mum was already hysterical that I hope nothing happens to my son. My dad was barking at how Nigerian drivers are the worst drivers  in the world. That the person who did this must pay.

When we got to the hospital, we saw Seyi lying down helpless, where is the doctor?
That the doctor was bathing. So why was he not attended to “that the hospital policy states that #30,000 has to be deposited before treatment starts.

We now waited for another two hours before the doctor came out, with her face heavily painted and her lips as red as blood. She said some test had to be run on Seyi before they can commence treatment, but the person that does the test is not available ,so we have to do the test some place else. We left the hospital with the address.


Seyi was holding onto my mum hand,  asking her to pray for him as he kept on saying God have mercy.

By 6 o’clock Seyi was already too weak and his breath was faint and distant so my mum decided o go back to the hospital.wen we got there the doctor took him as he was wheeled in the operating room.



Seyi passed away on the operating table.









It was not possible seyi cannot be dead.
My parents brought me back to the house when the doctors started  talking about how to move my seyi to the mortuary.

As I sat down at home staring at the clock slowly tick. I was waiting for a call that Seyi woke up.

 Seyi cannot leave  me all by myself.

I waited and waited for the call. In the evening my parents came back and I still asked, Seyi will be back right. Nobody answered me. Do you remember that Seyi was the favorite child?

Everyone broke down, i could see it in their eyes.


By the next day I have shrinked from size 12(slightly fat) to size 6(barely breathing).I still couldn’t cry. Deep down within me I knew that Seyi was coming back.
Seyi cannot leave me here. I can’t even survive a day without him. How would I know what to eat, what to wear, which classes I was having or what the name of my lecturer was without Seyi?

A small voice in my head kept telling me Seyi was still alive, now I had to believe him because I couldn’t survive without him.

Days turned into week’s,  according to the custom I had to go with them to the burial ground. I there was a white coffin there, I just sat down and was blinking into the void. Then an elderly woman approached me and said “it’s okay if you cry”.

I didn’t move a muscle because how can she say Seyi is dead and I should cry. Sighs and keeps thinking

After the ceremony which I didn’t even hear a word that was said, a young man who I have never seen before said come! Then he gave me a shovel and told me to pour sand on my Seyi

What! Seyi is truly dead was the only thought that broke through the void I was lost in for days. I wailed, and screamed Seyi’s name but he didn’t answer. I told them to open it so I would know if it was my Seyi.
I was shouting, screaming, I was probably mad I overheard a woman say! Indeed something stopped in me or something was snatched from me. I didnt  know what it was. 

But from that moment hence forth I knew deep down I had lost something I was never going to get it back. Never

I stopped crying and went home. That was the only day and the last day I cried because of Seyi.

Something had happened to me and I needed to tell Seyi about it, but where is Seyi.
I moved out of my room and moved into Seyi’s room. The day I packed out his clothes, there was so many new clothes and some with tags. Indeed Seyi was a fine boy.


I needed answers as to what happened to my Seyi I talked to his friends but no one knew hat happened or it felt like they were hiding something.
At night I couldn’t sleep, I was awake counting ceilings; I bet there were 6 of them staring back at me.


One day Seyi visited, he said a friend called him to pick up his girlfriend at ozone cinema, while he was crossing a junction .a car being chased by the police crashed into his car from the driver seat. He died of internal bleeding.
After this visit, Seyi visited often and I was always stuck in his room .I didn’t want to miss out any of his visits.

But I missed out of everything else happening around me. I had become a ghost of myself, I was not aware of what was happening around me anymore.

I never left my house except on Sundays for church.

All my friends,were not my typically my friends but they were Seyi’s friends, they talked to me because of Seyi. But Seyi was gone now, so to your  tent oh is isreal that was the look on my face. So everyone stayed away.
I practically lost contact with the entire world. I sat in a particular pew in the church every Sunday service and no one dared to sit on that seat. I didn’t even know why I showed up every Sunday ….

One day my father said, you know you can always talk to us about how you are feeling, we are all family. Don’t shut everyone out. It even got worse.


Then few months later someone came to my house and said that Seyi’s friend was dead. She was a close friend of mine.
Another thought broke out. Everyone I love dies

On Saturday 23rd June 2008 I completely shut down. I died

I died to my family, my world and to everything else around me.
School was going to be another misery when lectures, Seyi warned me not to quit school; I had to learn from scratch how to do things for myself. I was just like a freshman in 300 level. I was practically lost in everything going on.


I learnt everything I know today from Seyi’s death. I learnt how to give myself an honest opinion of my situation, not to be mad at myself, I learnt how to go out by myself, how to deal with people who mess with me. I became my own hero and needed no one else.

It’s been seven years since Seyi died, I miss him dearly but one thing I learnt from his death is that I am stronger  than I know. So are you! 


No matter the situation, no matter the circumstance, you see yourself in, you are a conqueror.
7 years from that day I no longer think I am dead to the world. I believe today I am good, tomorrow I will be better.

 I have two lovely kids now and a husband that loves me.
Well I think my tomorrow is already here,  I am better.  (singing I am a conqueror by empire cast, walking away)………………

     



          In loving memory of Seyi ojuolape