By Osa Mbonu-Amadi
What a sad coincidence – all those sitting down in this photograph are dead, while all those standing are alive, at least, as I write this story on October 6, 2020.
They are my family – sited in the middle is my father, Barrister Mbonu Amadi; my mother, Mrs. Ahunna Amadi; my younger brother, John Bosco Amadi (sited right); and my youngest brother, Kingsley Amadi (sited left).
Standing from left are my immediate younger brother, Dean Amadi; myself, Osa Mbonu-Amadi; my immediate elder brother, Ethel Amadi; and my eldest brother, Sylva Chijioke Amadi.
My father, the hero of our people on account of his being the first lawyer in our community, Imerienwe, passed on in 1993 at the age of 61. My father’s death was followed by John Bosco’s death. Bosco was born in the middle of the Biafran War in 1967. He died in South Africa in 2005 at the age of 38. Then my youngest brother, Kingsley who completed two degrees (Theology and Philosophy) in preparation for ordination as a Catholic Priest, died in 2010 at age 37.
The saddest part of this story is that my mother was alive to witness and bury all the dead – her husband whom she so much loved and her two youngest sons, Bosco and Kingsley, especially Kingsley her last born whom she and everyone called ‘Father’ because Kingsley’s education was tailored towards making him a Catholic Priest, though he changed his mind about the vocation – and anyway, it wasn’t really his mind, it was my parents’ decision that Kingsley should be a Catholic Priest.
Before my mother died in 2015 at the age of 79, she was already a shadow of herself. She was with me, my eldest brother, Sylva, and my cousin, Mathew Amadi (also late) at Osina Hospital that day, March 2, 1993 when my father died. My father’s death devastated her, but she never knew she was going to bury her two youngest sons after losing her husband. She saw almost everything she had labored for go down the drain.
When I first posted this picture on Facebook in 2018 with the explanation that all those sitting down are dead, one of my friends said, “Thank God you are standing”, which I found amusing, but truly, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if I had been among the dead, for those sitting down were the people I loved most in my life before I had my own wife and children.
I have never forgiven myself for Kingsley’s death. I believe I could have prevented it. In 1997, after Kingsley had decided to discontinue from the priestly vocation in preference for another profession, I had taken him to stay with me in Ojo, Lagos. He told me he wanted to take a course in MBA at the Lagos State University, LASU.
I agreed, and asked him to go and find out how much it cost to do MBA in LASU. When he found out I decided that the fees were a bit high. I sent him off again to the University of Port-Harcourt, UNIPORT, to find out what the fees were. Someone had told me it was cheaper at UNIPORT.
When he came back, he confirmed that it was cheaper quite alright. In retrospect, the difference between the LASU and UNIPORT fees wasn’t much after all.
I gave him money to go to Port-Harcourt and register for the MBA at UNIPORT. While in the East, Kingsley met a young female police officer whom he married. The lady encouraged Kingsley, who had two Bachelor’s degrees (Theology and Philosophy) and gunning for an MBA, to join the Nigeria Police Force as a constable!
I was devastated when I heard of it. He never finished the MBA. They had a son. Then, in late 2009, Kingsley took ill. After he and his wife had spent all their savings taking him from one hospital to another, Kingsley called me on phone one day from his sick bed and said, “Dede, please don’t let me die”. I wept as I had never done before in my whole life.
I spent all the money I had, and even went a borrowing, just to save my kid brother’s life. From a hospital in Umuahia where they resided, he was referred to Federal Medical Centre, Owerri. My eldest brother, Sylva, join Kingsley’s wife at the Owerri hospital, and together, they were looking after Kingsley.
I spoke with him on phone on the eve of New Year 2010. He assured me he was going to make it; that I should keep praying for him. And I prayed as I have never prayed before. I also told my church to join me in prayer for my little brother who was in the hospital.
A day or so after January 1, 2010, before midnight, I spoke and prayed with him again on the phone and he told me he felt much better. Around 2.00 am that night, a call came in. It was Sylva my eldest brother. Even before I picked the call, I knew something was wrong.
“We have lost Kingsley,” I heard my elder brother’s voice say to me.
My world fell apart. So, did my mother’s world fall apart. Only if I had kept Kingsley with me in Lagos… I thought to myself, and still think till this day.
That time, I would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and scream, “Why, God, all the people I love are dead!” But I would hear a voice say to me, “hold yourself. Your wife and children are not dead.” And I would say, “Yes Lord, you’re right. I am sorry. I still have my wife and kids.”
