It’s on that day you gather the highest number of guests. Both the well-dressed and the poorly dressed.
Those who could not assist you before that day will willingly contribute in cash and be kind enough to send you to be alone on that day.
Family, a committee of friends, church members, and acquaintances will create WhatsApp groups and compete among themselves to raise the cash they couldn’t have imagined raising for you while you were with them, and bring it to enjoy themselves under their canopies on that day they are sending you to be alone, and term it befitting.
Those who haven’t bothered about you in decades will suddenly travel thousands of miles, across seas and lands, just to come to send you to be alone on that day.
Both those who have always loved and detested you will remember on that day that no evil is spoken about those we are sending to be alone.
Those who couldn’t bring their VIPs near you will get upset with them if they don’t accompany them on that day to go and send you to be alone.
Uniforms in a somber mood and a façade of solemnity will form a leaden blend of camaraderie in the midst of competing uppity, on that day you are sent to be alone.
The artistic and poetic prowess of not a few, will spring up and project your true and false landmarks in innumerable eulogies on that day you are sent to be alone.
Mock-up promises and vows from the burst of sham emotions will flood the drums of your heartbroken family on that day you are sent to be alone.
Yet, you are only about 30 minutes away from when your carcass arrives from the mortician’s dressing table, and when the windy tears dry off all the partying eyes and the merriments to send you to be alone, begin.
Is it not such a wonderful feeling to be alone? Don’t be scared! Just try and be alone sometimes, before the world sends you to be alone. Try and die, yet be alive.
You see, when you are alone, you no longer hold grudges. You are no longer proud or ashamed. You are no longer envious. You are no longer poor or rich. You are no longer corrupt or saintly. You are no longer in want. You are no longer sick or healthy. You are equal amongst those who have all gone to be alone.
In this life, we must find and discover moments to realize that we owe everything to the world. Moments to live alone. Alone while alive. Alone while with others. Alone in the solitude of thought and empathy with others. That’s the actual moment of triumph. In the field where those that are alone are laid, there is no disputation.
So try and make the world a better place, reach out to someone this morning, show some love to someone today because we all never can tell when the world will send us to be alone.
Yours sincerely.
Citizen Agba Jalingo, Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, is a Cross Riverian and writes in from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.