One hundred people I know have died. They are all in my hometown now. On All Souls’ Day, when I went to pray by Dad’s grave in front of the old mission house, they rose—the one hundred people I know who have died—and went about their lives as usual. Women to the left, men to the right, Baba Egbe in the first row, seated by the road that split our church in two, the narrow road where bodies are separated from souls.
Today had to be a Sunday. Baba Egbe, the man who filled in when Father left for Mass elsewhere, had started to speak in tongues again: “If mankind recognized their resting place, they would keep it clean.”
One hand held the microphone to his lips, the other straightening the sleeves of his agbada, a boisterous gesture that echoed his deep, commanding voice.
“Life is fatal,” he said. “The farmer’s heap would die, and the hunter’s gun would perish. Both the mortar and the yam inside would perish. Eventually, even the monkey’s hands would miss the tree branch.”
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Baba Egbe announced the next clearing of the yard, a monthly event in our church. The men would arrive early with cutlasses and hoes; the women would prepare moi moi in the mission house. When the men finished, the women would serve the food. Balogun poured palm wine, and Catechist recited the prayers as Dad led half-drunk men in song:
Send out Your light,Send out Your truth,They are the ones to accompany me to Your holy mountain.
The characters of my nightmares—children slain in a Christmas stampede, soft, ghostly figures resembling shadows—all of them rose on All Souls’ Day, when I went to pray by Dad’s grave. A few months before his death from cancer, Dad had asked to be brought home, to the place that had devoured everyone before him. I know the grave of his father. His uncle’s is somewhere I know. In the church in my hometown, I know where the wife of his father’s brother lies.
A purple-clad priest, a cup of incense, voices urging angels to carry him to the court of God. All these men shall be rid of their souls by the voice of a priest.
Dad was a mystery, like most things in Ojeje. Numerous heads on a palm tree, the brown river where barren women go to pray for children. Boys swim carelessly, oblivious to the gaze on their naked buttocks. Between their legs, the fish do not bite. Snakes glide peacefully, fragile children of Oluweri, unlike the serpent crushed beneath Our Lady’s feet in the grotto. Dad said it is the dragon that pursued the Woman of the Apocalypse, now crushed as the Bible foretells. But there’s a line no one crosses, a boundary children do not swim across in the brown river. They say it is the line between the living and the dead, and the dead do not converse with the living.
An enormous bell housed in a tower beside the stone church. How it stretched its ringers, heels up, staggering on their toes, fascinated me. But Dad said it could pick up a child and smack him on the ground. When my uncle went to ring it for morning prayers at five, he saw the dead rise with each toll and the pauses in-between. It was why Grandma made him stop the job of church keeper.
Akara every eight days, a funeral every weekend. I drummed, Dad sang. One after the other, the people who mattered in my hometown were all gone. Corpses of various kinds—a young man who fell asleep and never woke up, the wife of our kinsman who passed away in Lagos, and the church warden shot by a careless hunter. Graves everywhere, beside the old mission house, whose peeling walls hint at decades of history, some new and elegant, others long-forgotten, their markings half-erased by time.
Home feels so silent. The bustling streets of my childhood, the joyous laughter, the rhythmic songs—everything has faded into stillness. But in the silence I connect with the past, so I guard it jealously, against the greetings of relatives and the panegyrics rendered by old women. Every house reminds me of death—empty shells where vibrant lives once flourished, now hollowed by time. Every meal carries the weight of memory: the pounded yam that tastes like Grandma’s kitchen, the palm wine that reminds me of Grandpa’s laughter. Children resemble ancestors, their faces bringing back memories of those we used to know—an aunt’s smile, an uncle’s laugh, a neighbor’s bright eyes. A girl born to our neighbors had a face like Grandma. People say the dead never truly leave but stand on the other side of the brown river, waiting for a woman to just pray.
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Finding a place for Dad was hard until a man pointed at a field in front of the old mission house. He said Dad had mentioned it as his resting place during a chat years back. I looked at it—it was large enough for two of Dad’s brown coffins. So, I imagined us together again, side by side someday in this land where memories walk. But when I returned on All Souls’ Day, a rich man’s wife had taken the spot.
A purple-clad priest, a cup of incense, voices urging angels to transport her to the court of God. All these women shall be rid of their souls by the voice of a priest.
Are you making the journey to Ojeje, my hometown? Help greet Dad and the jolly men we did life together.
This essay is a blend of personal reflection and fictional storytelling that explores the themes of death, memory, and identity in a hometown context. “Eventually, even the monkey’s hands would miss the tree branch” was translated from Olanrewaju Adepoju’s Ironu Akewi.
Damilola Ayeni is the former editor of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ).
The post Life, Death and Hometown Memories appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.