Vero’, today’s Friday and it’s been ringing in my head
since the break of dawn that it’s now a week that I lost you. I still can’t get
the pictures of the moments we shared together from my mind. I CAN’T. And I WON’T.
Miss you.
Saying Goodbye to Vero’ ends with Adeola Opeyemi’s piece. Read and drop your comments. Lit'n' Life appreciates you.
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FAREWELL DEAR SISTER
(For Oyemade Oyelola Veronica)
By Adeola Opeyemi
“Do not stand at my grave and weep
I’m not there, I do not sleep
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glow of snow
I am the sunlight on ripened green
I am the gentle autumn stream
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die.”
These lines rang in my head as I watched
you lay there, an angel in blue and a white shroud. Did they know, did they
guess, that your last outfit was the colour of a beautiful morning sky?
Words have failed to describe your passing
on, but I refused to try as well. Lest I glorify death for crushing a flower so
delicate, for felling young trees while dry ones stand.
You did not die, I know of death. I know
the way it zaps breath off a being. I know the way it robs a flower off its
beauty. I imagined you played chess with death, and you emerged the winner. You
were done with this life, with the incomprehensible pains born with man. You
were ready to go and you left. You did not die, you went asleep; an eternal
sleep as calm as you.
Do forgive us when you see us cry. We cry
not because you are finally resting. We cry for our selfish reasons. We cry
for the time we’d seek you amidst various heads and see you not. We cry for the
days we’d call you and hear you not. We cry because while you sleep, we would
be lonely.
We cry for the day we would make such journey and others would cry
for us.
As I stood by your grave, my heart wished
for a shroud of words with which to cover you. I wished for rhythms to see you
off. I wished I could sing with my croaky voice; a heavenly hymn befitting an
angel. I wished for so many things but my mouth was glued. If I sing, I would
cry; if I recite poems, they would lack poetic beauty. Your death has left my
inside with a silence so loud, I couldn’t hear myself if I speak. I know this,
because I tried. I tried to say some few words, but I couldn’t hear myself
speak.
So hear this, dear sister, they are words I
whisper at night, they are lines I hope the winds would carry to you.
A tornado has passed this way
A
flood has swept this street
An
unripe fruit has fallen from this tree
The
candle in the wind has lost a battle
This
Fenix has lost a feather
And
the calmness that comes after disasters
Has
come to settle on this debris
Farewell
dear sister,
And
we would seek you, Vero
Futilely,
in these pieces that was once whole.
Goodnight dear sister. I would not say
goodbye, goodbyes are for forever and you, Oyelola has only gone to sleep. So
goodnight dear one. Goodnight dear sister.
