The Day My Daddy Died - Adedayo Abayomi.......A Must Read

This was sent to me by the writer very moving narration of the day he lost his Dad.............
It was my second Sunday back in Nigeria after four years and I was looking forward to returning to the House on the Rock church at the Muson Centre in Marina. It had been years since I was there last. I wondered if I would meet anyone I knew or recognised from long ago.  I left early enough for the second service so I would have at least half an hour to see Dad at the hospital and Mum. Hopefully he would be well enough to speak. He had consistently been getting better since the feeding tube was inserted through his right nostril. That was uncomfortable enough to watch let alone endure. He tried to put up some resistance, even in his severely weakened state. On another day in another time, I might have been moved to ask that the procedure be stopped or at least postponed. But I could vividly remember the state I found him in.
I had been driven by Slyvester from the airport straight to the hospital.
It was an all night flight and we landed about 6am. I cleared customs, collected my baggage and was out of the airport by 8. Weary from the six hour journey and hungry, I nevertheless resolved that I had to see him before going home.
Walking into his hospital room was like stepping into an alternate reality. Being a senior military officer, albeit a retired one, he was given a private self contained ward room. And close family, really as many as we could manage, were allowed to stay with him. In the room was my father’s sister, ‘Maamie Surulere’, and Mummy (I think). I was first off all shocked to see my aunt there…What is she doing here? Was it really that bad?
I knew she was with the party, along with Mum that had to almost forcibly remove him from his house in Abuja and transported him to National hospital. He was then moved to Army hospital, and finally transferred to Military Hospital Ikoyi. But I thought she would have returned home, with the situation seemly under control. The look on her face was one of resignation. I nodded and mumbled a greeting in her direction. But my eyes had moved on and found my Mum. She smiled “Welcome home”. She could still manage a smile, but I could see her face was drawn and she had lost a weight. She had been through much; it was plain to see. Then my eyes caught the figure on the bed…I blinked. Surely that couldn’t be him
He lay covered by a thin linen sheet. It was clear that he was naked underneath the sheet, as it hung on his bones. And bones were all he was. His face was blackened, eyes sunken, hairless with what looked like burn wounds on his head. His mouth was open, his teeth visible. I drip frame stood beside the bed with a clear bag of glucose water set up for him. He looked like he had been dead for two days. My heart sunk.
He was almost unrecognisable. I saw him last in October 2002. We met at the Marriot in St John’s Wood where he was staying on official business. And I passed the night with him. I even had a picture we took outside the hotel the next day before I returned to school. I still remember his face from that day. It bore no semblance to the face of the figure on the bed. Mum had come over to hug me as I stood transfixed staring at the bed. She turned towards him and said Ade , Yomi is here” The figure remained motionless.
My mum released me from her hold and I dropped my backpack and walked with wooden legs towards him. I could see he was either asleep or unconscious, so I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Daddy, it’s Yomi. I just arrived” There was still no response.
I turned away from him and offered my aunt a smile and hugged the other person in the room; I still think.
And facing my mum, trying not to let my terror show in my voice or expression, I asked. “What happened to him?” “He suffered a seizure last night” my Mum said “And he has been unconscious since. But the doctors believe he will come out of it” I was struggling to conceal my shock. I wanted to give my mum hope and feared that if I let her see the despair I felt, she might lose the little strength she had left. I declared. “He will be fine, He won’t die on us” The words sounded hollow to own ears. I knew I had probably failed to hide how I felt. The wind had been knocked out of my sails for sure. Apparently, they had tried to give him some medication that his body in its severely weakened state could not handle. And he went into shock. His body was wracked with illness and his recovery was jeopardised because he would not eat. I understood that sores lined his throat and this made swallowing food unbearable for him. Even though he was only being given ‘Akamu (a custard like meal made from corn paste) The decision to fit him with a feeding tube was a ‘no-brainer’. So I stood two days later, watching while the tube was inserted. He had come to by now. He looked and blinked but could not talk. Or move much really. With the tube fitted, he slowly began to improve. His tablets were crushed and injected into him. Someone came in with one of those miracle ‘herbal remedy’ drinks in a bottle that reminded me of old Bacchus Wine; tall green bottle, with a slender neck and red twist cap.  The family was desperate to try it. Especially as the person that brought it reported that someone with Dad’s ‘condition’ used this regularly and it worked well for him…or her.
I would have to say that with the use of the contents of the tall green bottle, included in small quantities with his food, he began to put on weight again. The results surprised and encouraged everyone, including the doctors. We all began to nurse the hope that he would indeed pull through this and return to his family.
His face began to fill out and he slowly became more and more recognisable. He still couldn’t talk or move even, but his eyes looked more alert. When he was awake, and when he was asleep it was clear that he was really sleeping and not merely hovering between life and death. So it was with a light heart I arrived at the hospital that fateful Sunday morning to see him, en route to church. But all was not well. “He had a difficult night and had another of those seizures” Mum told me. I looked at him, and though he looked to be sound asleep his breathing seemed a little….agitated. There was something wrong somewhere.
“Je ki Yomi lo wa kini yen ra”(Let Yomi go and buy the thing they require) my Aunt said “Kini wo?” (What thing?)I asked Mum “They need a new Catheter”
I looked at my Dad sleeping and looked back at my Mum, puzzled.
“What?”
“That thing in his mouth, preventing his tongue from choking him; It needs to be changed today and they don’t have it in the dispensary.”
I looked at the ‘thing’. It did need changing. It was grimy.
His lungs had filled with mucus, a result I imagined, of the tuberculosis he was suffering among other things. And on a daily basis, it had to be pumped out of his chest. His mouth stayed open, and I believe as a result of this, he had begun to have some sort of ‘growth’ on his teeth. This was not helped by the fact that his teeth had not been cleaned since his illness got really bad. I imagined there had to be some way to clean the teeth of a patient in an incapacitated state like my Dad was. But they probably did not have the means to do this at the Hospital.
So this Catheter was in a really bad state and if it had to be replaced, I couldn’t argue with that.
“He also needs glucose drip.”
“Ok. I will go try Obalende, then Lagos Island”
‘Obalende’ to us was the name we gave a parade of shops between the Police Barracks and the Army Dodan Barracks in Lagos Island. It was really much more than that.
Rotimi, my cousin had spent the night with Mum and Mama Surulere, so I asked him to accompany me.
Obalende was just about 500 metres from the Hospital, so that was our first stop. None of the pharmacies around there were open yet; it was still early on a Sunday morning afterall.
We drove on into Lagos Island, and went from street to street without success.
We did encounter a few pharmacies – Drugstores would be a more apt name to call them. No one had it in stock. They did get the glucose. On our way, we stopped by Obalende again. Still no success.
I called the hospital, but could not get reach my Mum’s phone.
If I will be honest, I had begun to feel a weight descend on my soul. The day didn’t feel like it would go well. The sun was up, and the air was warm. But to me the day felt dark and cold. Something was not right.
We resolved to return to the hospital and try again in the evening. I had long since given up hope of attending church. His room was on the second floor and there was no lift. There was a little Nurse station box in the corridor off the landing on the left from the stairs. As we reached it, I felt the commotion before I saw it.
There were nurses and attendants running around. Someone stopped us when we tried to make our way to my Dad’s room.My Aunts daughter Ibeji was there. When did she get here?
From within the room I heard my Mum cry. And she was led out by a Doctor and my Dad’s sister and one more person.  “Ade, why are you leaving me!” my Mum’s cry of anguish.
“It wasn’t supposed to end like this” This can’t be happening Transport was arranged for my Mum and Mama Surulere back to the house. The doctor returned to the room and I still held hope. But 10 minutes later he along with two other men emerged. He came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“I am sorry your father couldn’t make it. But now you have to be strong for your mother. You know how women can get emotional. She has been with him, caring for him for weeks now. And it is a painful thing to happen and she will take it hard. But eventually, you have to get her to move forward. May his soul rest in peace” Throughout this time, I merely nodded my head unconsciously. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real With one last squeeze of my shoulder he turned and walked away with the two other men.  I made my way to his room, afraid for what I would find. My cousin Ibeji, said something to me. I looked at her. I didn’t hear what she said, and I didn’t know what to say to her. I turned the door knob and stepped inside the room. He lay almost exactly as I saw him a week ago, his mouth slightly open. Only this time, he looked more alive than I had seen him since I arrived. There was an oxygen canister standing where the drip frame stood a week ago, wires and tubes trailing from it. I moved the lot to the side so I could stand and look into his face. The more I looked, the more I was convinced he was still alive…somehow.
There was a chance the doctors gave up too soon. What if his spirit returned?
I touched his face and it was warm. I leaned to his nostrils to see if I could feel the faintest of breadth. Nothing. I may have leaned closer than I meant to, for when I pulled away I had some of his saliva on my right cheek. I wiped it and looked around to find Rotimi watching me. I had forgotten the last two and a half hours. I had forgotten he was ever there. He was standing at the window with the view to the street.
I went over to the one overlooking the lagoon. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring out of the window. I suddenly became aware that it was already late afternoon.
And there was some big party going on Victoria Island. I heard the sirens bringing VIPs. I heard the music, even heard the laughter.  It is funny how sound carries over water.
I remembered that a retired Navy Admiral, a distant kinsman of ours was celebrating his daughter’s wedding that day, somewhere on the Island. Maybe it was the same party.
If Daddy were here he might have gone to that party. I knew had to be in shock, because a part of me just could not accept that this was actually happening. Here I was standing in front of a window, the cool sea breeze on my face. Listening to the sounds of revelry and joy, those people unaware that while they were celebrating life, I could hear them in a room where there was death. This made me cry like i was there.
Adedayo Samson.