An Obituary

“A prayer/for the dying that will come to all of us/but may it come soft as a boat drifting across the bayou.”

Obituaries are social media constructs that announce that final life event—death. Like you did not already know. Obituaries only becomes relevant when the deceased is familiar. It helps to put a name to the death, a face to the name and contextual circumstances in place.

Today I walked into the ward and the nurses talked about the death of one of our patients. Ngozi Mba.

Did I know her? That squat elderly lady who had tardive dyskinesia (which means that she wriggles her face and arms involuntarily), who always asked that you give her money.

She was a pauper.

Of course, I do remember her. She once told me she was a pauper herself and I found that very Dickensian, it reminded me of Oliver Twist. But what pauper meant in this context was that she was government’s child. That same term used for dirty vagrants who live on the street. Think Jadum.

I do not know how she came about mental illness but I know that we, the gatekeepers, failed her. She died. They said she woke that morning and said she felt weak. She retired back to her bed and was found to have passed on.

Peacefully.

It reminded me of Kei Miller’s beautiful poem, A Prayer for an Unflummoxed Beaver.

May the dying that will come to all of us come soft like Ngozi Mba’s.

Amen.