The Day A Great Star Fell from the Heavens: Journal Entry for the Blockchain Memory Project #6

I was eight years old when I lost my priceless mother to the fang of death. It was a rainy day, the wind whistling wildly like spectators in a rowdy football match. Slices of thunder roared from the high heavens, sending lightling to take photographs of the earth. Tough trees danced gleefully in the rain while the soft ones, the unfortunate ones, collapsed on their faces to worship the strength of the evening wind.

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I was in my little room, peeping through the window. At intervals, I would put my hands in the rain and withdraw it whenever I heard the roarings of thunder. My mother had been seriously sick and admitted in the hospital for several days. Although the doctors at the hospital had kept assuring my sisters and I that my mother would be well soon, her condition continued to deteriorate. I did not give up, nevertheless; I believed that one day my mother would be healthy and strong again. But I was wrong. She died.

A Snake Bite?

While I stood in my room flirting with the rain, I heard a loud cry from the direction of the sitting room. The cry was familiar yet strange. I was terrified. What snake had bitten my sister that would make her cry so loud? At once, I ran into the sitting room to know what had happened.

It was not a snake bite. It was something worse: a great star had fallen from the heaven; my mother had departed forever. Once in the sitting room, I found my eldest sister rolling on the floor, weeping. My Aunty who had been in the hospital with my mother, too, sat on the floor, weeping. She was drenched and water was trickling down her blouse. It was then I realized that it was she who came to break the sad news. I didn't really understand what death meant at the time, although I joined the wailers and refused to eat that night.

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Our house would become a Mecca for the next couple of weeks, people visiting and signing the condolence register. Some visitors would give my sisters and I wands of Naira notes shaking their heads in pity. My mother was eventually buried in a private cemetery some weeks later. I would not realized what treasure had been buried, what great star had fallen from the heavens, until years later when I needed the shoulders of a mother to rest on.

The Steemit Blockchain Memory Project is a project aimed at sharing some of your memories whether good or bad on Steemit, Give it a try and let the memory be retained for your kids, and kid's kids!
Special thanks to @ericvancewalton for initiating this fantastic project.