Sometimes Goodbyes Are Forever

 I recently went home for a break, to spend time with my family and to rest from the hassle of COMUI (College of Medicine, University of Ibadan) and the decrepit living conditions of ABH (Alexander Brown Hall, University College Hospital Ibadan).

The journey home was much like many I had taken before. There were complaints about the cost of transport, hours spent in a cramped seat as the driver sped over bumpy roads, and passengers yelling at him to slow down. You know, the usual.

Entering the city I lived in did not feel the same, though. A lot had changed. It felt like I had been away for much longer than I actually had. New roads, an overhead bridge, new estates, restaurants and other businesses were springing up here and there.

When I got to my street, the sense of familiarity returned. It was just as I remembered. I looked around at the faded roofs, unpaved roads and unfinished houses, and it brought the feeling of home. It also brought back the bitter memory of a young neighbour who had died a few months earlier. As I walked home with my sister, I wondered what her mother would feel if she saw us returning, knowing that her daughter never came home to her.

It turned out she was not the only one. I did not know it then, but the friendly elderly man I greeted on the way home had lost his wife not long before. When my mother told me, I thought about how little I knew about their family. I wondered if she was happy with her children when she passed, if they had done right by her. Sometimes, you run out of time to make things right.

I thought about my young neighbour and what she did with her short time here. Was she ever fulfilled? Did she have a good relationship with the people who truly mattered? Did she leave a good impression on her family the last time she saw them? Sometimes, goodbyes are forever.

I looked at my mother, older, wiser, a little more frail and a little less agile. I looked at my father, still an enterprising man, now with enough grey hairs to make me wonder, to make me say a prayer with tears in my eyes. Sometimes, goodbyes are forever.

My sisters are all quite young, healthy and full of life, and yet, and yet. Sometimes tomorrow does not come. A day will come when the sun will rise and we will not rise with it. Sometimes, you have less time than you think.

As I left home, I hoped, I prayed, and I wondered if I would ever see them again. Sometimes, goodbyes are forever.

I wonder and I hope that I will live a purposeful life, be a good role model for my younger ones, and be a child who steps up when my parents are aged and senescent. I may have a lot of time left. I may have little. I pray it is the former.

And for every day that passes, a part of me passes with it. I hope to live without regret, to do my best every day for myself and my loved ones, and to be proactive about the things that truly matter, because sometimes, goodbyes are forever.

by Zaynab Boladale