Written in the first week of November…most likely November 6th
On Tuesday night, for some strange reason I could not sleep till about 3am and after sleeping for about four hours, I woke up on Wednesday morning. I was checking my Facebook and I stumbled upon RIP messages on a friend’s wall. The first thing that confused me was that most of the messages were coming in from Nigeria and this individual is a Nigerian that I met in Vancouver this summer. I was like “What kind of sick joke is this?” “Why is someone telling people back home that she is dead?” The individual that I am writing about is very active on Facebook, she had even posted on Saturday and all of a sudden people were praying that she rests in peace. I was so confused, scared, shocked, etc. I saw that her mum had asked people to pray for her as she was in surgery on Monday. And one of her friends told me that she had a migraine and had to have surgery and in the process, she passed away. I was also told that she had sickle cell anemia and this was not some sick joke, she was really dead. Gone, just like that.
I didn’t feel like I was worthy enough to post a Facebook post on our wall because we didn’t talk much. She went to a different school but attended the events hosted by the Nigerian club in my school which was founded by my friends and I. To the best of my knowledge, we’re the only Nigerian school club in Vancouver so some students not in my school attend our events. I even planned to tell her that we have so many mutual friends in Nigeria as I saw on Facebook but that’s even the least of my thoughts right now.
Also a few weeks ago, I learned about the death of another Nigerian student here. He went to the college that I also attended. I met him while we were selling Jollof rice in the college in order to fundraise for our independence day party. According to my friends, he went to the party and about a week later, we learned that he was dead. Even the girl that I wrote about earlier was at the party. One day you’re here and the next you’re gone. Sigh.
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well
Peace, love and joy
Fehintola
thisgirlcalledft 