Just before you end your life, think of these few things (ARTICLE)

I know life is hard, Lagos life especially. I know what it means to sit in traffic for hours and bear the tantrums thrown by ‘always correct’ bus drivers, what it means to swallow with wrinkly expressions like a child forced to gulp quinine, the insults of egocentric employers who handle every woman in their life like the whore waiting at their VGC home after a busy day and regarding them with the reverence designed for wives-Your food is on the table, how do you want it? Hot and spicy, hot or spicy?- and every man with disregard, like the driver they have known from infancy who flung naira notes to beggars from the car window and bought them Mc Vites on school mornings.

I know what it means to stare at the Range Rovers that honk in traffic and gape in awe at the ease with which they beckon on the boys selling gala and lacasera, dipped in water to make it look cold, at the ease with which they roll down their car windows and produce crisp naira notes, as if perhaps life was lived only for the moment.

It is these kinds of people our Mothers would call “shallow” with the conventional revulsion set aside for uncharitable affluent people, these kinds of people they finally would assert to be “heinous” and make us swear to never be like, because in the place I grew up, wealth not escorted by charity was termed wickedness.

I know what it means to turn on the Network news and hear stories of politicians looting money, big money, in Ghana-must-go bags, the size I imagine Eze would have taken to school, stuffed with books and village relics if he ever had the chance to go to the University., what it means to count the seconds, long like hours on the 29th, 30th and 31st when your bank hasn’t sent you a text appended with “Available Balance NGN…”

I know these things and I know the beautiful things too, and just before you take your life:

Think of your Mother, pounding yam to the fluffiness that would suit your Father’s tongue and who has boasted to the parish Priest about her child who is making it big in the city. She has slot in a prayer of protection for you into her list of monthly prayer points-Fire destroy my destroyers, my enemies would stumble and die by lightning-which she submits to the Charismatic pastor that visits the parish once a month.

Think of the eagerness in her voice when you speak to her on the phone, eagerness escorted by frank worry as if to say “Where is the money I heard falls like manna in the big city, when are you making yours?” She thrills her customers in the market with the pieces of tales you tell her about the city, which she sews together into complete tales that are largely unrelated and which she speaks of with the same pride as one who speaks of Brussels or Manchester-A man was burn t for stealing three cubes of Maggi, this Man was burnt in Ojuelegba near Ikoyi Mainland, Ikoyi is for the poor people of the city- Think of her, for she has loved you unconditionally.

Think of your Father, to whom your exodus is responded with the same hostile riposte as everything that has happened in your life. He did not go to the park to wave you off, similar way he had refuted attending your primary school graduation. “Emotions are things for women” he says often “Newspapers and wars for men”. Think of him, for he loves you differently.

Think of your siblings, carrying on amid the quandaries of life with you as the light at the end of the tunnel. They have visions of the future, in the manner I suppose the Israelites had visions of Canaan, Faith mixed with substance. Their faith of course stems from the convention that ‘the tomorrow’ is always healthier than ‘the now’, and their substance coiling from the credence that you have left for the city. Think of them, for they own you, in a way they do not own many other things, they own you.

Think of the beautiful girl to whom your voice is like a John Legend song.-The beautiful girl who has loved you utterly and without questions. She is like Omo for your soul, original Omo, the kind your Mother used in removing difficult stains from your confirmation white when you were a child and you played with the neighbors’ in the sand.

Think of the financially better men who beckon at her daily, and whose wallets are plump enough to pay for Brazilian hairs or those expensive creams in slender glasses. Think of why she has chosen to stay. Is it because she smells prospect? Perhaps because she is the kind of gold digger who seasons her acts with emotions so she soon becomes an opportunist?  Is it because of these things? Think of her, for parcels like her come only on special delivery.

Think of these things my dear, and amidst the hefty issues life hauls your way, I say you count your modest blessings. Count them; name them one by one and one by one and one by one and one by one.

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