BABATUNDE’- Based on the Yoruba rebirth belief.

In Africa, especially the part where I hail from, reincarnation is a belief which has a strong foundation in the heart of the people and my experience thus far seems to be somewhat exciting but worrying.

It was the 28th of December 1994; he could remember vividly.

Little Yemi heard her mother’s sobbing voice quivering over the phone as she put several calls across to family members all over the town about the demise of Grandpa.

“He was still hearty yesterday,” he heard her said to another relative “but it got worse in the evening when he had a heart attack; it was his third for the week, but the doctor reported him as BID when we got to the hospital where his remains lay as I speak.”

Little Yemi never understood the word ’BID’, but when he found the dictionary meaning, he felt bad. While standing behind the door eavesdropping, he remembered how Grandpa would stay up on Friday nights to watch late night movie with him until he falls asleep and the next morning, he would wake on his bed; how he would buy him sweets and ice cream but warning him of tooth decay; how he would helped him out with his sums and other assignments. He remembered finally how he would play with him with his toys and also in the garden. Of course he never holds back a spank whenever he does something awful. He was his best friend.

At dinner that evening, his father broke the already-stale sad news to him.

“Yemi, I know this is hard for you, but we lost grandpa; he is dead now and will no longer be with us.”

He had lost his appetite before and upon hearing that directly from his father, he left the table for his room sobbing.

The previous day, little Yemi watched as his grandfather held fast to his chest with his right hand trying to subside the pain as his dad and mom try to put him in the ambulance. He stood aloof praying in his heart for him as his Grandpa once told him that God answers prayers of little children, but it never happened that day.

In the following morning, he followed his father to the hospital. In the room where his body laid and prepared for the mortuary, he moved closer and whispers “I told God to bring you back home safe,” with tears trickling down his cheek, “but he never did; I will miss you so much Grandpa.”

He stroke down his cold arm with his palm until he held his index finger in his hand as he cleaned his face with the back of his left hand.

As he turned around, he saw his mother standing at the door with her face swollen and her eye balls red. She must have cried all night long.

His father held him close to his side as two men from the mortuary service completed their part of taking his body out for embalming. That marked the journey of farewell to a best friend ever- at least as a kid who knew little about life.

“It’s a boy... yes a bouncing baby boy.” The exhilarated voice of his mother startled him, bringing him back to his present as he was buried in his thought, gazing into that room.

It was December 28 th, 2014, exactly 20 years later, on the same floor of the same hospital. He watched his mother ran towards the nurse carrying the baby.

“Come on Yemi... take a look at him; just like your grandpa.” She said.

To Yemi, he saw his Grandpa more in his father than in his just born son, but to her mother, a new cycle began that moment- a reincarnation.

If true, then the whole process must have been programmed in an endless manner as long as life and death still have their parallel coexistence.

_END_

© Akinsehinwa Damilola, Aug 19, 2015.