Wrong!
Two days after she was buried (that is, on Tuesday), another friend of the deceased who also resides in Ibadan heard the sad news of Sister K's demise. Shocked, she wept profusely. And she began to wonder aloud where Sister K had travelled to and had an accident. After all, she couldn't have been sick. We saw only two days ago. When some of her fellow mourners recognised her line of thinking, they quickly corrected her that Sister K actually died on Saturday and was buried the following day.
Realising that her informants were completely certain of the date of Sister K's death, she now proceeded to tell them of her experience:
Early Sunday afternoon, Sister K had come visiting her. In fact, she had driven herself. They stayed together for several hours, cracked jokes; exchanged a litany of gossips and also had lunch together.
At about 6 p.m., Sister K took her leave, that is after her friend saw her off to the car. That is, after both had waved each other goodbye.
By the time the story of the lady became clear to all, it was obvious something very unusual had taken place. For at the time Sister K was visiting her friend, enjoying jokes and gossips, and having lunch, she was being prepared for burial! Interestingly, the car that Sister K drove to her friend's place was in her compound. During that period, efforts were made to move the car from where it was parked, but no luck. The car simply refused to start, and couldn't be pushed away to make room for the mourners who had crowded the compound. After several attempts, the boys gave up and left the car where it was.
The next day, on Monday, at the very first attempt, the car started. Even the mechanics that had been called to check it were left wondering what had happened.
When the lady who narrated her encounter with her friend (Sister K) realised that she had actually been talking, playing and eating with a ghost, she fainted. And she was hospitalised for a couple of days.
The story of people who are dead being seen in places has been with us for a long time. And there are actually cases of people who, after they died, went to strange lands, got married and fathered children. There is the story of one man, after many years, at the insistence of his wife to know where he came from, described his village to his wife and children and told them to go ahead, and that he will be joining them later. The women and children got to the village alright, but discovered that she had been married to a dead man for a long time! Such stories looked far-fetched to me. But not that of Sister K, for I knew this lady. In fact, I still have a vivid picture of the last time I saw her in my brain. That was a couple of years ago during the funeral of her mother in Lagos.
Sister K's story reminds me of what happened to my mother-in-law in Mushin, in Lagos, sometime in the late 1980s. There was a family friend, then in his 60s. Let's call him Pa Joseph. Whenever he visited my mother-in-law, and the latter was not at home, Pa Joseph would take the curtain and tie it in a particular way. By the time Mama comes back from her outing, and sees her curtain tied in that particular fashion, she automatically knew who had come looking for her, even before the people in the compound told her that Pa Joseph was around.
And so it came to pass that Pa Joseph took ill and passed away. Mama heard of the development, and quickly went to Palmgrove area where he lived to commiserate with his family. By the time she got back home, the little kids in the compound welcomed her back, eagerly telling her that Pa Joseph had come to look for her. Naturally, she thought they were making a mistake in respect of the identity of her visitor. But by the time she got to the front of her apartment, he curtained was tied - the Pa Joseph way. This was the same Pa Joseph who was in the mortuary and she was just returning from his house to commiserate with his family! It was a chilling experience for Mama.
Now this kind of thing greatly contradicts the received wisdom of the major religions about death-judgement-heaven/hell. Many of the protagonists of these religions are quick to dismiss developments of these nature as part of the grand design of the devil to deceive and confuse the children of God. That may be true. But I have this sneaky feeling that such characterisation betrays ignorance of some of the mysteries of life and the unwillingness to probe into them.
For if we are humble enough, the human species know so little of the LAWS OF NATURE. And the vast majority of humanity knows even less of SPIRITUAL LAWS. Yet we go about pontificating on our beliefs with the certainty that should belong only to the Almighty God.
Ours is indeed a strange world.
* Ohwahwa is a company executive in Abuja.
