I’ve always felt a pressure to write. I tell myself that writing clearly makes me think clearly, but life usually gets in the way. Today, though, a video stopped me in my tracks. It was about a subculturally-famous skit maker who passed away recently, someone I didn’t even know until the news of his death broke. He died of complications from high blood pressure, perhaps worsened by lifestyle choices.
That news triggered a memory I haven’t touched in 10 years. It was my first real collision with mortality.
I was back in boarding school, maybe JSS3 or SS1(Grade 9 or 10). I had a mild case of chicken-pox, but to be honest, I decided to milk it. In hindsight, I didn't need a doctor; I just needed to get out. Anyone who went to a strict boarding school understands the urge to see the “outside world,” even if it’s just the local hospital.
So, I exaggerated every symptom. I played the part well enough that the school nurse panicked and authorized a trip to the General Hospital.
I felt like I had won. I was sitting in the school's Hilux, cruising toward "freedom."
When we got to the General Hospital, reality started to set in. It wasn't the sterile, quiet environment you see in movies. It was an open space, separated only by flimsy curtains. It was chaotic in that typical Nigerian-hospital way. People were everywhere - families anxious, tired, others praying quietly, some sleeping on the bare floor, just waiting.
I sat there in my school uniform, acting way more miserable than I actually felt, pretending to be sick but mainly just enjoying the break from school. That’s when I saw her.
There was a baby, maybe a couple of months old, hooked up to an oxygen cylinder that looked massive next to her tiny frame. This wasn’t a small medical device; it was a tall, industrial-looking tank. But it was her chest that froze me.
I don't know how to describe what I saw.
I have never seen a human body move like that. It wasn’t breathing; it was heaving. Her chest was pounding against her ribs with a violence that didn't seem possible for something so small. It looked like a car hitting speed bumps at full velocity - boom, boom, boom. Fast. Aggressive. Terrifying.
Two doctors were hovering over her. Her parents were standing to the side, praying silently, their lips moving in desperate rhythm with the machine.
I watched this for maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe longer. Time does strange things when you're watching someone fight for their life. I was transfixed.
And then, abruptly, the aggressive rhythm stopped. The heaving ceased.
In the next second, the silence was shattered by a scream I will never forget. "Jesus!"
It was the mother. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, a raw, primal sound of loss. The kind of scream that hits you in your spine. It took three people - the doctors and her husband to hold her back as she thrashed. She was fighting them, wailing, asking God questions nobody could answer.
I just sat there.
In that instant, my exaggerated symptoms didn't just fade, it evaporated. The shock slapped the health back into me. I had blown a mild illness out of proportion just to see the outside world, and the world showed me its harshest truth immediately.
It was the first time I realized death isn’t dramatic the way movies show it. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t pause the world. It just happens, and the world keeps moving.
It’s been over a decade since that sad occurrence. I know medical professionals see this every day; for them, it’s Tuesday. But for the rest of us, death is a reality we ignore until it screams in our faces.
I don't know how to end this. I’m not trying to turn it into a motivational quote or a sermon about how life is meaningless. I’m just laying out the story the way it happened. It was the first time death stopped being an abstract idea and became a real thing in front of me.
And maybe that’s the point: you don’t forget the first time you see life leave someone. It changes how you look at your own.