Father’s Day Flashback: Confronting the death of my father, by Chude Jideonwo

Red, Chude

by Chude Jideonwo

People say that you grow up fast when you lose a parent. You hear it all the time. I had always thought it weird – yes, everything changes when death visits, indeed your world might turn upside down, but growing up faster overnight? It is a cliché. That is until you live that experience.

I got home very late on the night of Thursday, the 8th of May, and entered into a night I will never forget (forgive me these clichés this one time). I was getting endless calls from my mother hurrying me home from like hours before, telling me my father had collapsed, but it didn’t worry me too much – and there wasn’t really that much urgency in her voice, at least the urgency that had come across at other times. You see, we have had many death scares from my father who has oscillated the past couple of years between sickness and health; and each time he had survived. Forget the cat with nine lives – I was now convinced death wasn’t in the man’s DNA. He had also been very hale and hearty for the past few months, even more so since his office – a government parastatal – had transferred him back to Lagos to be with family. So death wasn’t in consideration.

However, at the same time as we pulled in front of the house, two things hit me: one, a small crowd that had gathered in front, and two, an ill-timed call from an uncle who mentioned: ‘I hear that your old man…’ I didn’t wait to hear the rest: I threw the phone to my driver in front and rushed out into the house – barefooted (I would be barefooted for the next three hours, unaware).

That ‘old man’ was only 54. And he was lying on a chair in the sitting room. Lifeless. That was the first thing that hit me. The next was my mother – crying relentlessly, inconsolable; restrained by what looked like all the women in the neighbourhood. I rushed to her and hugged her tight. I’m not sure I was crying, but I knew I was pained – not as much for the death of my father, but for the sorrow that had gripped his wife of almost three decades.

My mother and I have shared hugs many times and have shared tears sometimes in those hug for a father who has fought many battles… but this time around, the woman whom I have called strong too many times to remember wasn’t even strong enough to return the hug. I was alone in my pain, as she was in hers. It was this strange loneliness that made me turn back to my father and realise that … he was dead. And we were alone without him.

That hit me with so much force I sat down on the floor and started crying like I have never cried before. People were scolding me, telling me I had to be strong for my mother, throwing all those clichés one had only previously head in the annoying Nollywood flicks. But it didn’t matter to me: I who had promised myself many years ago when I thought I’d lose him that if it did happen I wouldn’t give in to drama; I cried like I was a baby. I walked up to him, I touched him, I felt him, I told him he couldn’t be dead. “I just spoke to him this morning…” I said. I just served him his meal the night before. He was lying here on the chair – so how could he be gone?

This is where the real drama began. I had lost my father, I was surrounded with sympathisers, but I was alone. And I was informed of that immediately: “We know this is very painful,” a neighbour, still in his work clothes, said to me. I didn’t know who he was. “But you have to make decisions on what to do.”

Me? I who had never even seen a corpse before? I who had never lost a close family member? I who had never, ever attended a burial ceremony before? How would I know what to do?! And who was this man to tell me what to do?

It all began to flash past, and I remained confused. I began to hear the words ‘hospital, mortuary, body, car’ … I didn’t understand it. What was going on? My father had just died. How did they expect me to function?

But my growing up experience had just begun.

The men of the neighbourhood called me into a circle they had formed (and for which I remain grateful), and began to give me directions. Those words again: mortuary, hospital, body. I nodded like I understood. My father was brought out of the house. I didn’t like the way they carried him, like … a body, but I couldn’t say anything. As he was laid into my car, I knelt down, hoping that, in the privacy between us, he would wake up and I would prove to them the thoughts hiding deep within me, that he was only tired; that he had only fainted. Forget that the body had lay there, confirmed dead by a nurse, more than two hours ago – as far as I could tell, he was only unconscious. I knelt down to hold him and cry, but just as soon as, someone jerked me up. “Sorry, but we have to start moving.”

It was 11.30pm.

It was quickly arranged. My driver and one of the neighbours would be in my car, and my mother’s car, with three other neighbours, would follow at the back. The rain had made the roads of downtown Ikorodu where we live muddy, and almost impossible to ride, but ride we had to do. They said we should take him to the general hospital, that didn’t sound good to me at all. This was the man that took me through school, I mean this was the man that had sustained my every need until recently, this was the man who had spent so much on me, surely we could take him to a private hospital, surely his money should work for him? But I couldn’t bring myself to argue. They said the general hospital was the nearest.

I held my father’s head in the car. He and I have never been emotional people: in fact, we were not close in the sense of sharing words of wisdom and experiences, we were close in that we were buddies: we talked politics endlessly, we criticised television endlessly, he talked about history and I listened, I asked him all the questions which answers he always seemed to know, we shared an intense dislike for Obasanjo, just as for the past few days we agreed that Iyabo was being unfairly hounded, but we weren’t lover-dovey father-to-son soppy… except for that night. That night I think I shared a tighter bond with him. That long drive was therapeutic – I remembered the great times we had shared, I remembered the recent conversations we’d had, I slowly rubbed him all over; hoping to keep him warm for the doctors, I noticed for the first time that his fingernails were long and well kept; neat. His open mouth dripped a little saliva but I didn’t care, didn’t even wipe it off. I spoke to him as we continued going. And I couldn’t stop crying.

The general hospital, Ikorodu didn’t share my grief. Still in the hope that he could just, you know, be somewhat alive, I ran in and informed them my father had collapsed and I had brought him in … but no one seemed to be the least bit disturbed. The first nurse yelled at me to go get a card, the woman at the card room was sleeping and couldn’t be bothered so I waited about 10 minutes for her to pull herself. Thank God for the Nollywood movies, I knew better than to get angry with anyone.

I got the card, I went back to the nurses, and a doctor was called who sluggishly went to the car where my father lay. There was so sympathy, no kind words, no support, no hurrying to save a life. In fact, on seeing the body, she could only give a callous instruction: “Turn him now! I can’t check him like that!” We turned him, and she checked him. He was dead.

But no one cut me any slacks. None of them thought to make it any easier on the bereaved. There were mild gasps when I told them how young he was, but that didn’t change anything. I couldn’t take him to the mortuary, they said, because he hadn’t died at that hospital, and the police needed to confirm that he hadn’t been killed by anyone. But hadn’t I just told you that he had died from the heart-related ailments he had been battling for years now? I could have been speaking to the wall.

I rushed him to the police station. That was another story. Oh, the police were downright … callous would be a mild word. No one seemed to care that the young man looking forlorn had just lost his father. The DPO wasn’t around to give me a report, they said. It was way past 12pm. They continued quarrelling over who had forgotten to buy kerosene and who had taken the torchlight. A long spell of talking finally unlocked them: I would have to pay a fee for the death report. I had expected this, and when one of my companions tried to haggle, I reprimanded him softly. I would not haggle whilst my father’s body waited.

We took my father back to the hospital, where the nurse and the doctor continued to be tone-deaf. It was an endless wait, peppered with rudeness and brusqueness, though one most be fair to note that the single doctor and the single nurse had more on their hands than they could chew. One hour and a slightly raised voice after, we got the papers we needed to drive him to the mortuary.

Need I speak of another round of money talk and endless waiting to make sure my father was treated with decency? But I was already on autopilot. The tears had left, and in between calls to friends, I continued to do what needed to be done. As no one was going to comfort me, there was no point in crying. It was the loneliest place in the world to be.

I gave my father one last hug and released him to a whistling and bubbly mortuary attendant unperturbed by the morbid smells that were his company, and we were on our way back.

Thoughts went over and over my head. He had lived a good life, hadn’t he? He was happy when he died, wasn’t he? Just the day before his death I had rushed off a meeting to be home when he arrived – I proved to him with that gesture that I loved him without reserve, didn’t I? It’s a good thing that he died after I had finished from the university, isn’t it?

My father was one of the most intelligent men I had ever met – he knew something about everything. Not surprising for a second class upper graduate of political science from the University of Ibadan. His friends tell legendary tales of how he narrowly missed First Class because he wouldn’t bother to read; for him excellence came effortlessly. Having no interest myself in history, he it was that introduced me to folks like Haile Sellassie, and how people like Mugabe, Biya and Kerekou came to be who they were and where they were. And he had lived a good life, honest, hardworking life, rising to the lofty position of Manager. There were legendary tales of just how much colleagues on the same level as he had amassed, but my father was happy enough with having enough to build his own house, take care of his wife, see me through school, ‘train’ his siblings and cousins, and enjoy little pleasures like the DSTV we had both planned to buy the very next week…

These were the thoughts that went through my head as we took the long road home. But there were other thoughts that hit me: thoughts of the present … thoughts of reality…

Thoughts like: one of the two most important people in my life is gone, and I am sure I would grieve for him in time to come. But not yet. For now, I must continue to confront his death. There is so much to do: visitors to receive, relatives to meet with, offices – mine and his – to visit, a burial to plan, endless ‘strategy sessions’, expenses to bear, regular visits to the mortuary… I have grown up overnight.


Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

*Jideonwo is co-founder and managing partner of RED (www.redafrica.xyz), which brands including Y!/YNaija.com and governance consulting firm, StateCraft Inc (www.statecraftinc.com). Office of the Citizen (OOTC) is his latest essay series.

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