Chrysalis
Image: Discover Magazine By Abe Onche Think of me again as a new creation As the time of rebirth heralds itself And as I contemplate the vast potentials Of a new year, a new life With each new day we are born again As much as the sun’s face Differs from one hour to the next And perhaps we do not feel it But the shadows of change Are seen best at dawn and dusk Rebirth is as real as we choose We reason, recount, repent, resolve To surpass our heroes, our ideals The student who seeks mastery To be a master of oneself It is because we choose to see our fate That we are able to make our destiny So do not take lightly these moments of rebirth Weigh well the life in your years, recount them While it may seem we merely add numbers To a journey toward the inevitable That number is also a birth: moulded, tainted Like the smoothest pottery or the stained glass
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Image: Hiverminer By Tochukwu Eziukwu When I heard the news of her death, I knew life will never be the same again for him. I knew that no amount of words, no river of tears, no number of company, will ever fill the void her demise has left in his heart. Life couldn’t have been more cruel. But life has always been cruel, just that we seem to be oblivious of its cruelty when it is happening to others. Didn’t you hear about the little baby that was thrown away at the road side by her teenage mother; that little baby who will spend the rest of her days not knowing her father or mother? Didn’t you hear about the 5 year old little boy who just lost his parents to a ghastly road accident and will now spend the rest of his days living under the mercy of relatives? What about that widow that just lost her only child to an unknown sickness? Do you know her? Didn’t you hear about it? I’m sure you heard about it, but it probably was just another sad story for you, another bad news. You may even have thought these events were taking place somewhere in mars and not on planet earth; after all they were too unreal to be happening on earth. But what you never realized was that somewhere in people’s homes, real tears were being shed, that somewhere in people’s heart, red blood was dripping freely. You never realized that somewhere in people’s memories, wounds that may never get healed were being inflicted. What you never realized was that these were not just stories, but real life tragedies that were happening to real people living in a real world. Real tears! Real pain! Real life! Life has always been cruel and will always be cruel. This is not about being negative or pessimistic. We’ve seen it happen in the past. It is happening today. Now what makes you think it won’t happen again tomorrow? Sure it will! Again, don’t judge me as being negative because I’m not. I’m just being forced to accept a reality I have always wished wasn’t true; a reality that bad things happen to good people. But I have seen it happen. I have seen bad things happen to good people over and over again. The first time I saw it happen, I thought it was a mistake. But then it happened again and it has kept on happening. A few days ago it happened again. He lost his wife, after they lost their baby; a newly married couple. He is a good man, and people speak highly of him. She was a good woman, whom people spoke and are still speaking well of. Why then should life be so cruel to them? Now she is gone, but he is left here with nothing but just tears; and to think that it was just about a year after their marriage makes it more heart-wrenching. Such pain! Such agony! Now he is in tears, and everyone is weeping with him. The questions are shooting out from every side. The same questions I’ve always heard when bad things happen to good people. Everybody is seeking for answers; answers they may never find. I have not lived long enough to know so many things, but one thing I have lived long enough to know is that there are questions we may never have answers for. Some may find this hard to accept, especially those of us who believe that everything in life has to make sense. It is even harder for those of us who believe that because of our faith in God, there has to be answers for everything; an explanation as to why bad things happen to good people. But we forget that the moment we assume that position of having answers for everything, then we stop being humans, and therefore assume the status of God, who is all-knowing. But we can only be humans! It might be humbling for some of us to accept that we don’t know everything after all, that there are things we may never have an explanation for, questions we may never have answers for; questions like why bad things happen to good people, questions like why she had to die like that. Life has always been cruel and will always be deemed cruel, especially when we lose a loved one. But for some of us, death is not the cessation of our lives, but the beginning of a better life in a better place. There we may find answers to all of our questions, but till then, let’s accept the fact that life can be cruel to anybody, any day, any time; and we would be left with nothing but questions without answers. In memory of a beloved sister.
Her Death Sentence
Erica Hart Posed Topless to Show Other Black Breast Cancer Survivors that They are Not AloneImage: Pinterest Daniella Gyang woke up slowly from the unconsciousness brought on by the anesthesia. As she became more aware of the fading yellow curtains and the sharp smell of disinfectant, her brain registered the dull pain in her chest region, which prompted her to look down. The memories came flooding back. She had just had a mastectomy…on both breasts. She didn’t need to prompt the tears; they fell of their own accord. She felt her chest clogging as she remembered the series of events that led to her current position on the hospital bed at the National Hospital, Abuja. *** Daniella had seen a little lump on her right breast. She saw the lump by mistake while trying a new dress at her regular boutique. She pressed it and realized it didn’t hurt. She shrugged as she continued trying more new dresses. A month later, she noticed the lump was slightly bigger; but only slightly. And it had begun to hurt. Oh! It wasn’t a sharp pain or anything. It was more a discomfort than pain in itself. She wrongly assumed it was a boil. As she got out of the bathroom, she went to her sewing kit and picked up a needle. She went to the mirror, raised her hand and pierced it. That was the beginning of her problems. The resulting wound didn’t heal. In fact, it gradually began to expand and ooze out pus. The wound was an ugly mound that was a variation of rotten green and puke-like yellow. She went from hospital to hospital and the doctors kept treating her for her ‘wound’. They would clean, disinfect, dress it and tell her to allow it heal. For one year, the wound kept expanding and she kept getting treatment for it. As soon as the treatment was done, she would feel some sort of relief but after a week, the pain would return at a higher threshold than it had previously been. It got so bad that she had to leave her job because the smell from her breast was horrible and the flurry of perfumes she doused herself with couldn’t hide the smell that preceded her entrance to any room. It wasn’t until the injury had almost engulfed her right breast before she was referred to the National Hospital, Abuja. The doctors were shocked beyond words. ‘Why did you let it get that bad?’ was a question they constantly peppered her with. She couldn’t explain that she didn’t think it was serious and having discovered that it was, didn’t think she could afford a mammography. Quite frankly, she just didn’t want to be told that it was much worse than a stubborn wound. She wasn’t surprised when they told her that she had breast cancer and it had metastasized. They told her they needed to go to surgery immediately if they were, in anyway, going to try to save her life. As she contemplated what it would mean to have her right breast removed, the head Oncologist told her that he had more bad news. The cancer had spread to her other breast and even that one had to go. And to make matters worse, they were hoping they could contain the spread such that it didn’t affect her lymph nodes. She still had to undergo chemotherapy but their best option was to remove both breasts. She made her decision. She wiped her tears and told the doctors to cut them off. And though she felt she had just been given her death sentence, she was not going to let herself die if there was a chance for survival. They went to the theatre two days later. *** Daniella looked at the flat bandage wrapped around what would have been mounds of her C-Cup breasts. She felt more than physical pain as she imagined her chances of ever getting married taking a nose dive. She was 40 years old and had been single, not by choice, but by a combination of factors. Her parents died when she was eighteen. As the first child with four siblings, she had to go to work to prevent her Uncles from splitting them and complaining about raising them. She worked hard enough for four people and God blessed her work. She soon rose in ranks and had her business going very strong. She single-handedly sent her brothers and sisters through school, up to their Masters level. She paid for her sisters’ marriages and got them settled into their homes. Only her brothers remained and even they had good jobs to provide for them, she still remained a major source of income for them. As she struggled for her siblings, she got older and older and didn’t care about the many suitors who wanted her. When her disease started, most of the suitors dropped out of the race but Renda Njawe remained faithful in his pursuit of her. He had been with her all through the spread of the cancer and even through her surgery. When she woke up and didn’t see him, didn’t see any of her siblings, colleagues or church members, she knew that she was on her own. She didn’t feel mad about Renda leaving her; he was after all, a breast-man, a thing he had mentioned quite a few times. She could not imagine such a man marrying a woman without breasts. She was sad though that the family she sacrificed so much for could not even keep vigil after her life-changing surgery. She felt like she had wasted her life for people who continually sapped her energy and finances and who really didn’t care about her. The surgery didn’t even break her spirit as much as the loneliness wrapped tighter than her bandages did. Daniella sobbed in earnest and uncontrollably as she wondered what her life would look like from this point on. She cried until she fell back into
