Like Isabella Swan in Stephenie Mayer's "Twilight" novel, "I have never given much thought to how I would die; though, I'd had reason enough in the last few months, especially this week. But, even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this". This has been my thought since 10 am today, the first day of December, 2017. Today's incident has given me a lot of reminders about life that I had forgotten and just like Isabella, I've learnt a few lessons in the twenty minutes encounter I had with death.
This week has been rough in all manners and I've been taking it all in until Wednesday when I had a conversation with a close friend. This person understood my plight and had been trying to talk me out of my misery since the previous day but it seemed not to work. I had lost all hope that things could get better. No need for the sordid details of my life but this person knew I was at my breaking point and spent long hours on Whatsapp and phone calls trying to make me reason rationally about my decision to give up trying to better my situation. It was a phase I understood clearly cos I had spent long dreadful months already battling this particular issue and I felt, "To hell with it all. I'm done trying". I went as far as making a decision when this friend of mine asked me a simple question. I was asked; "Glory, what do you think would make you feel better?" and out of frustration, I said "Death". Try as my friend could to convince me to decide otherwise, I insisted that death would do just fine. That was on Wednesday.
Today, I and Bestie were in a hurry to leave the house to see our folks and also stay till evening for her brother's Bachelor's Eve. We thought there would be the usual traffic along Third Mainland Bridge; thus, we decided to hop on a motor cycle, the popular Okada in Lagos. We were riding along Ozumba Mbadiwe road, getting close to Bonny Camp when the bike starting swerving in a zigzag manner, precariously. The Aboki kept trying to control the brakes but the motor cycle had a will of it's own. I was sitting in the middle and somehow, I found myself trying to control the hands of the bike man as well but before we knew what was happening, the motor cycle had somersaulted and when we landed on the hard ground, we were crashing along the ground for a while before it finally threw us out into the air in different directions. I hit my head terribly as I found myself on the ground in the middle of the road.
We were all in a state of shock and as the hawkers on the street rushed to our aid, I felt myself trembling badly. I was numb and couldn't feel my body at that time. Bestie was shocked as well and sat on the floor on the pavement as she was advised to do. It was when I tried sitting that I realized that I had sprained my ankle and was bleeding. The side of my left arm had a bad scratch, and the skin above my waist was scratched as well, together with the top of my right arm. My hip hurt from the heavy thud with which I had landed on the ground but asides those, nothing else. Bestie had the same scratch on the back of her right arm and her left elbow. Because she is way lighter in complexion, the bruises looked really red. She hit her left ankle too but luckily for her, she wasn't bleeding as I was but she bled from her elbow.
We were lucky because, anyone who knows that road knows how busy it could be any day. The miracle there was, no single car was driving past or was even close by when the accident happened but fifteen minutes after, there was a massive drive through of cars along that same road and people kept telling us, "Na God save una. Una know how many people don die for this road this week alone?". We didn't lose any of our belongings. Even the money Bestie had withdrawn earlier which had flown out of her purse was neatly retrieved from the road and given back to her. My laptop bag which had my phone, international passport, ATM card and several other valuables, which had found itself in another zone was retrieved intact for me. God saved us. We were able to get a cab home but we went straight first to Bestie's family hospital for treatment.
All through the drive home, I kept smiling and laughing like a moron and when Bestie asked why, I told her of how I had wished for death two days back but never thought it would come in this manner. Bestie was furious and scolded me for being stupid. We agreed we would do a thanksgiving in Church on Sunday to express our gratitude to the Almighty who had saved us from becoming corpses.
The crux of the matter now, the reason I'm giving out this information is not to beg your sympathy or entertain you with my descriptions. It's to tell someone out there that words are powerful. Yes! Words, thoughts, and wishes are real. Be careful what you wish for as wishes have spirits and the moment they leave your mouth or mind, they become life.
Somehow, I feel like God saved me but allowed me to have a glimpse of what death looked like and how it could have happened. I still ache all over as I type but, I'm grateful. I've done so much to get to where I am in my twenty something years on earth and I haven't even started yet. I'm not done with myself, never will be. Although sometimes, it seems like it but today, I realized that I still have so much to do, so much to achieve, so much to be grateful for. I can't just leave like that, not yet. I haven't even been loved the way I want. I still hope to feel that. (Lol. Silly me).
But really everyone, hold on to this life that you've got cos it's never returned back once taken. If you don't believe, ask those in the mortuary. Never wish/speak negativity to yourself. Always be positive and optimistic for EVERYTHING BEST WILL COME SOONEST!
"I'm alive" as my favorite person, BJ would say and I do not take it for granted.
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