Death: The Strange Stranger! By Isah Rufai Ahmed
“Baba discipline” is the name of the old soldier that is responsible for correcting erring students in the school of my primary assignment. He has two grand kids who always keep the lodge busy. The two boys are always here and there, one just have to notice them. The older and the younger one are always together, they run errands and go to the mosque together. Only their height reveals who is older.
Today, the kids had strangers. So many women were coming in and going out of their house. Among these strangers is one which is neither feminine nor masculine. You all know that stranger, the kids don’t. They played on oblivious of this strange stranger. Maybe if they are older they will get to know him and why he came. The kids have shown me how lovely it feels to be a child. One is worried by what life throws at him/her; the parents are there to protect them. Perhaps the only worry is if the right snacks are not delivered in time. A child isn’t stupid if he/she doesn’t realise the storm the parents are wriggling through. After all isn’t he/she a child?
However, these kids should know this; the strange stranger has been here since last night, it was lurking around the house but we all didn’t notice. Nobody really does notice when it visits. It was before us all alive, we are audience to the story of its many heroics. It has conquered many and on this day it has conquered the grand mum of the two smart kids, yet they know not! I wish they do!
Death has visited again! This time it took the old woman. Like that silent thief in the peace of the night, it has denied the kids their prized possession. Maybe it is here to remind us that we are after all mere humans; that the world is only a market that we must all depart when it’s our time. No matter the lesson it brought this time, just know that the known strange stranger was here and we are not privy to know where it will visit next! Be not like the farmer who prepares not till it starts raining!
NB: There is a lesson I wish to share with all of you. Baba discipline married his wife in 1974! She has been through it all with him he said. You name it; thick and thin and what else? May ALLAH forgive her and grant her paradise.
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