• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Message from a distance

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Based on a True story.

Papa and I were always at loggerheads with each other. I was strong willed and stubborn just like him, we didn’t see eye to eye on some issues and we “fought” a lot.
My siblings (seven of them), found it difficult to ask Papa for anything because they were afraid of him but not me. I would match up to him and boldly make my request, Papa knew better than to argue with me or say no to my request because he’d have to give me a good reason for that. Inspite of our cat and mouse relationship, I was clearly his favorite child. I could stand up to anyone without being rude to them. I would never allow anyone intimidate me or my siblings and I always stood up for what was right.
From the corner of my eyes, I had seen Papa several times, smiling whenever I did something that he thought was good.

There was something strange though.
Papa and I shared a unique gift that was both weird and surreal…maybe it was telepathy. I remember vividly when I was a teenager, most times when I had a dream and I told Mama about it, she’d scream and tell me that Papa also had the exact same dream. We used to laugh it off at first but at some point it wasn’t funny anymore. There was no explaining the weirdness of that sort of thing.
Papa sought explanations from our ezemuo, but the wise old man told him that it was beyond him.

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Something mysterious happened one time when Papa was out of town. He was a driver and had taken his boss to Umuahia for a wedding. Papa was going to be gone for the whole weekend.

I woke up on Saturday morning and I felt that the dream I had at night wasn’t ordinary. It was as if Papa was sending me on a errand.
In the dream, he had instructed me on what to do if his brother came asking for money. He specifically asked me to check in his pillow for some money and give a certain amount to his brother.
I told Mama about the dream and she almost didn’t believe me until she heard Uncle Chike’s voice later that day. You can’t imagine her shock.

These were not the days of mobile phones so there was no way to reach Papa. I reminded Mama about the dream and she grudgingly allowed me to check the pillow. Alas! we found some money in it and gave to Uncle Chike the specific amount Papa had mentioned in my dream.

Mama was surprised. She never knew that her husband had a bank inside his pillow. And now her daughter had broken into his vault. J

Surprisingly, Papa was very pleased with me when he returned. In his haste, he had forgotten to give Mama the money for his brother. Little did he know that his daughter would understand the dream and then use her initiative to take care of the situation. He was very happy. His only worry however, was that he had to look for another safe place to hide his money since his “pillow vault” had been discovered.

Papa became very sick and he couldn’t work anymore. He suffered a stroke that left half of his body paralysed. We couldn’t survive on the peanuts that came from Mama’s farming. It was dry season and there was hardly enough farm produce to feed our family of ten.

My parents decided that the best thing to do was to ship off my siblings and I to work as domestic staff at the homes of some rich relatives. Seven of us were scattered all over Nigeria and I landed in Lagos.

I lost contact with my mother and siblings for several years but from time to time I communicated with Papa in my dream. I was comforted by my dreams but I was getting increasingly worried about his health. I pleaded with my aunt who was also my employer to let me travel to the village to see my father but she refused. She promised that I could go in December when the whole family travelled to the village for the Christmas holiday. How could she make promises for December when we were in April?

My nights became torturous as I would often see Papa in pains. I will never forget that cold morning in April. It was a wet morning because it had rained heavily all night. I woke up with a fright and I was sweating profusely. I had the worst nightmare ever..
I knew something bad had happened to Papa but there was no way I could find out. A few days later, Uncle Chike, came to take me to the village. This even fuelled my worry. He didn’t have to tell me anything, I already knew that something was wrong.

I saw a heap of sand as I walked into the family compound and I realised that six feet under the heap of sand was where Papa lay.. I can’t even tell you how I felt at that moment.

That night, I had a dream and Papa told me that he was still alive when he was buried. He told me how he had lost consciousness and the village drug seller pronounced him dead. And because our family could not afford to pay for a morgue, they decided to bury him almost immediately. My heart was broken to pieces. I was really pained. I shared this startling revelation with Mama and she fainted. It was just too much to for her to bear. It was such a huge blow to everyone one of us..

That was the last time Papa communicated with me. I miss him so much and I wish he could visit me in my dream one more time.

Udy Osaro-Edobor
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