On Emma And David Omonhinmin

BY GABRIEL OMONHINMIN
November 2007, is one of the saddest moments in the Omonhinmin’s family. In quick succession and in an unbelievable manner, two of my immediate elder brothers, Emmanuel and David took their exit from mother earth. Emmanuel, my brother, had before November 6th when he died at the Auchi General Hospital, had been broken-hearted and bedridden, with stroke for eight excruciating years as he was abandoned and forsaken by his wife.
As if it was planned, as the curtain drew on Emmanuel’s life, David Emmanuel’s half brother, who is also his closest friend and confidant in the family, on his way from Benin to Jos in Plateau State had a motor accident which resulted in a spinal cord injury.
Knowing that the two men were much closer, we resolved never to allow David know that Emmanuel had passed on.
On Saturday, November 10, 2007, as I arrived at the Auchi General Hospital Mortuary to prepare Emma’s body for his final passage, one of the most haunting words on death, I have ever read was the description by the one and only Professor Wole Soyinka in his memoirs, “You Must Set Forth at Dawn” on one of the last moments of his friend Femi Johnson.
As the mortuary attendant, threw open the door and pointed to the corpse of Emma, the inimitable words of Soyinka came to my mind. His words: “As I looked down on the stretcher, I received a jolt, rather like an electric shock, a crude intimation of finality. Nothing had prepared me for the plea for help that I encountered when my eyes looked into my brother’s. His, glassy and mud brown eyes rolled upwards to encounter mine, eloquent in their depth or bewilderment. Like Prof Wole Syoyinka, I asked what is happening to me. I pleaded. Help me up out of this pit; just help me emerge from this darkness. Emma’s eyes appeared to dissolve into a deep, endless tunnel; fathomless...I withdrew slowly, chilled to the bone, acknowledging that he had withdrawn himself from the world, even as my hands left his. For I knew, in that moment, that I had left Emma at the very end of the tunnel, within that fathomless space, that my elder brother who laid on that stretcher would not return home to Ehallen-Ewu in the form we knew, and cherished.
After the burial of Emma, frantic efforts were made by the family members to save the life of David. “Another death in the Omonhinmin’s family must not and should not happen; we decided in finality as if we were God who has the ultimate say about life”.
On Monday, November 12th, I left the village for Benin, and went straight to the Emergency Wards of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital to see how David was doing, what I saw at the hospital brought hopelessness to my mind. My brother requires a miracle to stay alive. I went away sucking and praying that David gives us the opportunity to save him.
On Tuesday, November 13 at exactly 5.30 a.m. I left Benin for Lagos a very depressed person to plan the next line of action. It was not a surprise, when I receive the text message from Conrad the youngest child in the family, “Don’t bury him, he is sleeping”.
Emma and David’s passage made me to begin to make critical inquire on the purpose of life and the meaning of death. The questions that came to my mind, was, is there such a thing as eternity or is this life that we know the only reality? The atheists are of the belief, that there is no God and no life beyond this sphere. They believe only in that which they can see, touch, hear, feel and smell. But if there is no life beyond the grave, is the essence of life not meaningless and purposeless? Why strive for goodness of justice or kindness or any other positive virtues if it all ends in the grave? What does it matter then if you kill or maim your neighbour or help yourself to his wife or rape his sister? Experience has shown, that “when there is no God, everything is permitted”. And if we believe that only what we can see and touch or feel physically exists, how come we believe that love exists when we cannot see love? We cannot see hatred. You cannot feel it, nor hear it. Yet it is one of the most powerful forces in the world. You cannot see, nor hear, nor feel thought, but you know it is a reality. You cannot see the imagination, yet it can take pictures of sense, knowledge and throw them upon a canvass, or can translate them into the most beautiful harmony. You cannot see the wind but you can feet its effect. You cannot see gravitation, yet you can feel it effect. You cannot see conscience, the voice of your spirit, but you can feel the effect.”
It is about a year now, since Emma and David decided to take their exit from mother earth. It has been a year of immense pain which has continued to endure unabated. The deaths of my two brothers’ are not in vain. Their death no doubt has helped those of us alive to draw closer to our creator God.
Their death has made me discover God’s purpose for my life. Life without a purpose is meaningless and mere existence.
I now meditate daily on God’s greatness, His grace and His love. From experience, I can say that major problems have become far less significant when measured against the greatness of an omnipotent God. Adieu! Emma. Adieu!! David. Rest in peace, until we meet to part no more.