My Nightmare, Your Experience

You know how you build sand castles by the beach and it looks good for an hour until the waves decide it’s time to level the playing field? That was how beautiful aunt Rita, the then matron of Eko Hospital in Lagos died every minute until she could resurrect no more. It turned out that the prayers we sent whether as secret supplications of the heart, or as private intentions we shared at public places went unanswered.

I had picked up my phone, staring impatiently to blink up one of her usual responses: “Lee, i am stronger today.” Or “When did you say you’re coming to Lagos again?” Or “Thank you Lee, mummy told me what you bought for her.” Our last conversation was on that morning. I woke up and felt strung to my bed unable to move a muscle. It was 4:56. am the period my dad always refers to as the hour of prayer. I didn’t believe much in it but i had to routinely practice my supplications if they’d make aunt Rita strong again. I practically made my devotion a three course meal. The doctors in Sierra Leone had said she would be alright. The ones in India were counting on a miracle. Back in Nigeria, well, maybe we did more praying than medical consulting. But chemo wasn’t an easy exercise, I’d come to realize.

I struggled out of bed and succeeded in washing my face in my tears. I didn’t know why i cried. Maybe i was happy that I’d finally see aunt Rita that evening after my morning paper. Maybe i was excited that I’d be graduating and leave the unfair atmosphere of the University of Illorin. Or maybe i had anticipated that aunt Rita would die before i saw her. But i wondered why i would be swamped in such worry. Isn’t my family God’s own family? Let me allow our Father in Heaven take care of his sister.

“You have two options,madam. You’re already a medic, so you know the risks involved. We could terminate the pregnancy and save you before it spreads, or we could allow you have the babies and risk it spreading to your marrow. “Babies,” my aunt yelped. “How many are they?” It was six years after marriage before Ray Parker, her first and only child was born. It’s been 5 years after before she could get pregnant again. And now ‘babies’? “I said how many are they,?” She screamed at the doctor. “They are four, madam,” he responded. And that was the end of the conversation.

I arrived Lagos late that evening and met my mother sitting at the entrance of my aunt’s house. Her tears welled up when she saw me. I knew my mother won’t be the same from that moment. Susan had lived with aunt Rita for almost 8 years now. How was my little sister going to cope? Her husband, Raymond was the only person who received the news differently. He was smug, arrogant, disregarding, disrespectful and a wife-beater. So it was clear to me now, cancer didn’t kill my aunt. Raymond did. And God also contributed because he was deaf all the time my family called out to him.

Leonell