ISMAIL OMIPIDAN
I know that Death, that five letter word, is inevitable. But I miss my mum, three years after.
She had wished I was closer home than I was. But she died before Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, Governor, State of Osun discovered me. So you can imagine how I feel now that I am in Osun, but my mum is no more.
My mother was unique in all respect. Call her a Prophetess, you won’t be wrong. There was nothing she said to us or to anyone that did not come to pass. From the 80s up till her death, she woke up at midnight to pray to God. She did that on a daily basis, just as she kept religiously to the Monday and Thursday voluntary fasting, weekly. Readers who are Muslims will understand better the point I am trying to make. She was 80 before her death.
By the Wednesday preceding her death, she had expressed her willingness to go “home” on Friday. No one knew she was speaking in parables. But my older brother, AbdulGaniyu Omipidan, reminded her that she needed to rest and must be very okay, before leaving the hospital. She looked at the direction of my brother and said “Well, if you are not going with me, I will go alone on Friday.”
My father died 17 years ago. Incidentally, he died on a Friday too. Friday is a special day for Muslims anywhere in the world. And by Friday February 17, 2017, my mother passed too. After my father’s death, Mum was everything to us. She soldiered on, all alone, for 14 solid years before she left us too.
Death is one event that is certain in everyone’s life. Whether you are rich, poor, boy, girl, man or woman, it will surely come. And once it is time, you can’t delay it. If the time has not come, you can’t fast-forward it. Forget about those who claim to have the power of life and death. Nothing happens without the permission of God, our Creator.
Iya Musili, I would have wished you were still alive, especially because you even told me a week to your death that you were not going to leave us now after that hug on your hospital bed. It turned out to be my last hug from you. Exactly one week after making that promise, you left me. You left us. We became orphans. But I take solace in these words of the Holy Prophet (SAW): “What has reached you was never meant to miss you, and what has missed you was never meant to reach you.”
Taking part in lowering you to your final abode was for me a dream come true. You had always said it, that none of us would go before you. To God be the glory. It came to pass.
Iya Musili, Iya mi owon, May Allah continue to grant you and our late father Al-Jannatul Firdaus. Amin.
Note: This piece was first published February 17, 2020. But I still miss my late mum.
. Omipidan is Chief Press Secretary to Osun State Governor, Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola