Tribute To An Undying Friend Poem by Friday, Happy Oyamenda

One night I lay on my back, gazing at the old scruffy ceiling of my room. Only one thought kept pushing its way through my righteous mind: DEATH. What would happen if I didn’t wake up from this odyssey of sleep I was about to embark on? Would I be in Nirvana with God or rot hell with the Devil? Would I meet loved ones like Bilkisu, Michael Jackson, Kessienasce or even our beloved president, Yar’dua? I watched these questions sailed away unanswered.

I woke up this morning with an achy thought of you. I looked for you in the photographs but you weren’t there. Then I walked to the faculty, I saw the imprints of you on the people you touched. I felt your ever refreshing fossilized presence on their faces, remembering the good old days that wrapped us together; the sadness and the happiness, ups and downs, your naggingness and your crude jokes…

Oh dear Bilkisus, you were the greatest gift U06 ever had. you came into our lives at a time when we thought we had it all handled, but didn’t. You sat smiling at me under the crispy blue sky when I first met you and I knew if I spent more time with you that our friendship would soar beyond the sky. What a blessing you had been, until that blessed day the turmoil in your body began a new journey for you and for us. Oh you were indeed a paragon of courage and strength.

Your undying smiles and wet wit were really soul-lifting, though it was your unfaded love life that left the most indelible impact on your friends. Your love was as strong as a mighty oak. Not even many waters could quench your love for your friends and even your enemies. Did you really have enemies? No! You never did. You never saw enemies, but friends- soul brothers and sisters.

Your series of treatments were brutal. But all the surgeries and radiations never altered your feminine essence; the source of who were and still are to us-U06. The pain of your treatments never brought a moan of discontent; instead it aroused your feminine energy and profound love.

All were touched by your beauty, both inner and outer. After every surgery you got up, dusted yourself off, and bounced back to life.

Your strength is burned in our consciousness; your selflessness and courage are our comforts in this space we occupy, a space filled with your memories and still such a long way to go.

In the last few months that you lived, there was no such thing as melancholy. Not in your comic atmosphere; nurturing your friends with love and acceptance and firm guidance. You never allowed anyone get away with anything. Oh God, how I respect you for that!

The last few months of your life seemed like eternity to me. Now I long for another moment in your presence. How I’d love you given the chance, how precious I’d hold each minute, each second, were I to have those times again.

Ajoke, may be I never saw your last moments well as I should, but now I see. I see that they were really your greatest gift to us, your friends. Gradually you stepped back from our lives. No more classes, no more smiles, no more.… Your dulcet tones still vibrates in my brain.

My days are now different, that’s true, though you’re never far away! Your friends are finding things a bit tough- a love such as yours is not easily replaced. We still grow together, your life’s gifts like a lotus flower opening slowly, petal by petal, as the forms of our lives take shape, fed by such love as yours.

These are my words. Words of tribute to you, to an undying friend. I regret not one minute that you’re there and I’m here. For I know that this separation is but an illusion. It‘s a shadow, not a substance.

To your beloved friends I’d say to them: we are all at choice in the matter of our lives. How we act or react colours our existence. Ajoke has given us her love, even in her toughest last moments on earth. I have deliberately chosen gratitude, not loss over her death. I may constantly feel pain and loose of her; but I’ve learnt that when I get past my fears I’ll surely connect with love and everything that God is.

Love heals. It heals our souls, it heals our relationships, and it can heal our planet. Ajoke has given us this love; let us choose to share it with others.

Inspired by Neale W.Donald's book: Home with God...
Friday, Happy Oyamenda