Apr

18

Lost My Grandmother

Filed Under Experiences 

By 14.10 on April 5, Mrs. Abigail Kehinde Olugboji died. She was 87 years old. Those are the facts. Yea, my maternal grandmother died at the relatively old age of 87. Not many people would think that calls for any sorrow: she was old, wasn’t she? But for all those who have recorded the death of someone they were close to no age is just old enough. I was close to my grandmother. I grew up with her. I stayed with her from when I was a few months old till I was four. In other words, my first memories were made in her house. And from when I was about ten years old I spent every long vacation with her, and when vacations couldn’t be measured in terms of their length anymore I spent Christmas at her place, and together, we witnessed the New Year.

Her death was something I saw coming. No, not that she was sick, nor that she had defied the average life expectancy of Nigerians; she was weak. I think the first major warnings were from the tendons around one of her right knee. The tendon weakened so that her knee couldn’t support her leg and the leg bent outwards, making her legs form an unattractive K. Walking became difficult for her. Not that that was what killed her, but it was what made me realise that she was growing old. And since growing old always ends up in death, what else could I expect?

This leads to thoughts on old age. I can imagine how difficult growing old could be. I mean, you would constantly know that death is just around the corner, and that is in the best of cases, i.e. in cases where old age is not plagued by a myriad of illnesses. What I think should be important to the medical scientists isn’t merely keeping us alive but in good health. Before science leads to that we can help ourselves by living healthy. It might be a very sensible thing to leave cigarette and alcohol alone. Just don’t remind me of how stupid the preacher could be.

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