Loss

On a cold evening, my mum and I driving back home from a journey and I thought to myself,

“Hamza is going to love this gist I have for him”.

And then we arrived home and the news broke, my mum came into my room absolutely frantic and kept repeating “Hamza”, “it’s Hamza”, “Boko Haram killed Hamza”, I was incredibly confused at first and then a massive shock descended on me.

You see Hamza was my favorite cousin, from when I was a kid till the time he died, i always wanted to hang out with him. He was a joyful soul, he brought so much energy wherever he went, flashing his chipped tooth and his weird laugh that was infectious.

He loved the Army so much, I dare say too much, we had both agreed to join the Air force prior to his joining the Nigerian Defence Academy somewhere along the line I got diagnosed with a disability and he switched, he joined the infantry of course because Hamza is energy personified. He fondly called me Air force 1 and in turn I called him Army 1 when he joined the Army.

Suddenly i remembered.

All the times we spent together while he was alive, the laughs and the fights. On his last visit home, he told me all about how Boko Haram terrorists were operating and how they were crippling them with so much enthusiasm.

And then i cried.

I cried because I couldn’t reply his last message to me because of faulty internet network and i had so much more to tell him,

I wondered, did I do enough to let him know how much I loved him?, if I had replied his message would I feel a little better and not wondering how that conversation could have gone?

He lived a good life and died doing what he loved.

I hold on to the good memories of him and his wide smile and say to myself, “he knew he was your person Rabi, he did”, and I find a little comfort in that.

My advice to you reading this isn’t that you should give flowers to those you love while they’re still here, I just want to tell you that if you ever lost someone and you’re wondering if you gave them enough love that they deserved, the answer is you did.

Please don’t be hard on yourself.