AND THE DEAD WERE LONELY

 

I started reading And the dead were lonely since January, short piece it is but I'm just finishing it now.

When Lolwe suggested the title, it came across strongly to me, I couldn't avoid it. To me it told a different story, the loneliness of the dead before they die.

The night when Rubygold died, I sat at the back of my friend's house reading this short story through teary eyes. I thought about the last discussion we had when I saw her poem, she told me "it will all make sense from now on" but that wasn't what I was focused on that night, it was how lonely she must have felt before she started the process, how lonely she must have been dying, an how lonely she is now dead.

The loneliness of people who brightened the lives of others, having extra laughter, surrounded by fans and maybe human beings, but deep inside dying of loneliness,  and died lonely.

So whilst those guys were ranting about how no situation can make them die by suicide, I was locked up in my body thinking about Ruby's loneliness. It was better off thinking about mine. The truth that if I had died also, I would have died a lonely man. How everyone seems to jes see how lively Chines is but cannot see through the facade to a loneliness two step away from death.

I felt it will be me too. Dying lonely. Confined in my room, dying and the world will have no hint until like the protagonist decaying stench calls attention. It was some cold thought that I couldn't wave off when I stared at E's cold body. E was lonely(in his box)! Alone in that box, alone in his grave, decaying alone. Surrounded by love, gave love yet lonely in his grave.

I thought of Ruby's future too, the fact that she could get more lonely and not have anyone to share it with, because the loneliness of death leaves no room for expression. I feel sometimes that those buried are lonely, needing someone to sit by their grave and talk with them. Tease them until they laugh so hard and blurt, "I'm dead, leave me alone". Then sniffs, sobs, retire for the day. It is not only their departure that is painful, their loneliness after being buried tells another tale people are too immersed in grief and busyness to listen to.

That night I accepted my fate. Of dying lonely. Because nothing is wrong with that. And I still didn't finish the read.

No. I didn't make new resolutions to love hard or love less, I didn't also make resolutions to reach out to more people or connect whilst I read this story that night. I just braced myself, which is more of letting go of the thought of me and replacing it with all what Ruby was until she died lonely. Alone! What it was like dying alone. What it felt like living life and ending it alone.

Today, I finally got to the end. Today, T.B Joshua left the world. And in the early hours of the day when I first stumbled on the news and told myself it's a lie, then rushing to his Wikipedia page to confirm, and confirmed it, and stared at him for a while before updating a WhatsApp status in his honor, what I thought about is the possibility that this man might have died lonely. After laboring relentlessly, indulging in humanitarian services, adored and cherished by those who knew and benefitted from his philanthropy gestures, both financially and socially. And it is that which troubles me most. I've been withdrawn today. Baffled. Numbed. Watching a video of him full of life and trying to reconcile it to the ways my mind suggested that he may had left. Lonely! It saddens me.

So, I went back to read "And the Dead was lonely" I've read it every single night in bits, when I felt E may be lonely. or remember Ruby!

Here's a link to read it.

https://lolwe.org/and-the-dead-were-lonely/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost