The Last Bit

And again, it happened! Just when we got comfortable about flying, just when we thought, “I’d just go by air, its quicker, its relatively safe now and its faster”…It hits us again and boom! It’s another airplane disaster! This time killing over 153 people abound and another 9 on ground. To what do we attribute this? The airline Managers? The Pilots? The Nigerian “patch-n-go” system? Our Leaders? The unreliable emergency system? The Nigerian populace and our defeatist mentality? Who exactly can we blame? Who do we point fingers at? This crash hit home in so many ways. I lost colleagues…I lost a dear client- even though in her lifetime, I thought her troublesome, I lost friends of friends, I lost fathers to childhood friends, and some way or other we lost people we thought barely there but as the 6degree of separation reminds us, we are somewhat connected…and so it hurts! In my moment of morbid thinking, I put myself in Ijeoma’s shoes. She went for a friend’s wedding….I can do same. She had fun on the Saturday of the wedding, probably had a drink or two and danced her heart out, she have taken memorable pictures and shared with her friends on BB. She maybe, even updated her BB display profile stating how much fun she’s having. Her shoes may have hurt ‘cos as a girl you have to look good at that wedding, her tailor may have ruined her dress last minute, her mascara brush may have broken, a fibre nail may have cracked on her index finger, she may have been worried about not getting her friend the right gift, Her sister may have called her to tell her to buy her ‘Kilishi” but she randomly said she’d call her back, she may have flirted stylishly with the man who sat next to her at the party…..All of this was barely 24hours to the end. She have heard a baby crying at the Airport Lounge and said to herself, she will make things right with her man when she gets back to Lagos, she may have wanted to return her sister’s call from the day before, She may have planned to finish reading that novel before she gets off the plane. She may have had deadlines to submit at work on Monday morning. She may have wanted to do something for her Nan in the village….So much planned only to have it all cut short unknowingly. Emphasis on the word, UNKNOWINGLY. We never know when that last moment will come upon us. Some relatives claim their dead know days or even moments before it comes, but the simple truth is even if we know, we never make adequate plans for it. Death is inevitable, so they say, but life is inimitable too. It’s only ONE subscribed to an individual, its given- one each to one person and as much as we live this life to its fullest, lets make sure we leave good marks in the other person’s. We are mutually dependent on one another anyways. It’s what we owe ourselves as humans, it’s what we owe our legacy and it’s what we ultimately owe GOD! Death is a 5-lettered word but so also is PEACE, which is what we can only pray the victims of the ill-fated Dana Airline experience a few seconds to the command “SHUT DOWN LIFE”, and again its what we pray the grieving get, sooner than later! God rest the souls of the departed! Amen!!!