Opinion article by Duke of Shomolu, Joseph Edgar
It was a dark night and it was in my old flat in Shomolu and the world was asleep.. Witches and people who roam the night were up to their usual stuff and I was on the blue rug feeling really empty and useless.
My father had just passed. He was ill for 5-years and I saw him die everyday. He died everyday of those five years losing his dignity and becoming very close to an infant with all of its frailties. He could no longer recognise me and would be asking me to help him call his son-Joe who lived in Shomolu.
I didn’t cry, didn’t show any emotions. I didn’t really like him that much because of all the fights. So I thought I was man enough, not showing any emotions and that I could take it. I would hurry him to die so I could bury him and move on. But he was stubborn and would wake up every morning looking lost with nothing in his eyes but sadness.
Then he died. I jumped up, ran to his house and picked him up and dropped him at the Igbobi hospital morgue and started preparations to bury him.
Took him to his village and buried him in a room in his house. Did the usual and came back to Lagos to my tiny Shomolu flat and sighed – that was that. Let me now move on.
Then the loneliness of his life hit me. The lonely footpath to his house in the village started haunting me. The emptiness of life and how it all will end on this same footpath no matter how narrow or wide for all of us hit me.
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The dark spells started haunting me. I would go into a deep depression remembering my father’s sadness. His fight to be a man, His fight to make us men and the turbulence that was his life.
He was a handsome man with children but was lonely. I would see his shorts, his big belly and his big bible and I would start crying. I will go into a corner and cry and regret not recognising his true worth when he was alive.
And then the voice would say, it’s OK to kill your self . Just jump down the balcony and it would take only seconds and you could be with him and I would consider it.
I didn’t feel it was an issue, the dark thoughts to kill myself and as such I didn’t tell any one. I romanticised the idea and even started looking forward to it. I would be at work, having s3x, eating or just talking and the thoughts would come and I would say to myself, calm down wait till evening, I’m kinda busy now.
Then the night came. I was listening to Luciano Pavarotti. He gave me temporary bliss. I rested on my back naked with shorts with the earphones blaring some sweet Sonato into my soul.
Then it happened. It was OK to jump and I stood up, walked to the balcony and stared down. It was the third floor and down below was concrete. The choice was three, do I jump on the spiky fence so they could pierce my back and come out from my chest like we see in the movies or do I jump on the roof of the cars or go straight to the concrete hard floor.
As I stood there contemplating, Zara, my sweet daughter who was about 3-years old and was a veteran sleep walker tugged at my shorts and I looked down at her beautiful eyes as she held up her hands so that I could carry her..
She had just saved my life…
*Duke of Shomolu*
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