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THE STILL BORN


We had to name him before we buried him.
He came to us dead but we could not send him back nameless.
The wrapping sheet that come with babies was already decaying when we committed him to mother earth.
Mom would have called a few neighbors but dad insisted that a proper burial should have a biography and we couldn't think of anything, because he only almost lived.
So we just named him and  buried him.
We named him Madu.
 Our family name is for the living, not for this event that almost occurred.

I don't know what he was rehearsing in the womb
but we would never hear it.
we buried him without music since we couldn't agree on his favorite
but we named him before we buried him.

Explanations are excuses we make for fate.
these, the doctors gave us enough.
God bless their weary souls and the youngest female among them who held mom's ring finger and whispered  "please pray for me"
"There are things only time can give you the permission to understand" grandma had said when I refused to eat super that night.
And for the first time in forever she didn't make sense.
And there was thunder and I didn't shiver.
Then I made the first mark in my last year's diary that I remember.
"Grandma, I would wait"
Then mom sobbed more and prayed more then we slept.
But that was after we have named him and buried him.
`©Samson Abanni

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