Against All Odds

Chapter Thirty Eight: Saying Goodbye

Obi had gone with her father to the mortuary to pick her mother's corpse . The siren was on and Obi was startled at first when it was turned on.
Prior to that day she had gone with her father to identify the corpse. They were ushered into the room where corpse were kept and each had a number tag. Obi was terrified by the number of dead people in the room. The mortuary attendant drew out her mother's corpse before they proceeded to dress her.

Obi shook with fear as she saw her mother lifeless, dark and slightly bloated. The very strong woman who was always working to give her and siblings the best was just lying down there with her eyes shut, naked. Humans were truthfully nothing but molded soil without the soul as she was taught in church.

Obi's father held her on her shoulder and Obi did not protest. She was shaken to her toes and the way her mother's lifeless hands swung as they applied what seemed like an ointment on her made her shiver the more.

They dressed her in an attire that Obi had handpicked. Her mother held no title in church but she loved the cloth she had worn on the day the twins were dedicated in church. Obi could recall how happy she'd become each time she told the story. She had asked for twins and God gave her two beautiful girls who looked just like her mother . Obi did not get to meet her grandparents from her mother's side but her mother claimed they were wonderful people. But unfortunately they had also died an untimely death. Obi refused to think of her mother's death as some sort of cycle.

Her mother never talked about her brother and Obi never understood why. When they finished clothing her corpse, they put her in her coffin, then her father settled their bills before they left.

Her siblings and the rest of the family had already gone to church in a native attire that every member of the family wore. Obi was led to find out that dee Ogbo had actually paid the cost for everything. She still did not appreciate his efforts because she blamed him for her mother's death In a way.

The church service began promptly and Obi sought out where her siblings sat and moved to their seat. The coffin was opened to expose her mother's corpse and the priest rendered his sermon.
When they read from the Bible portion that the priest had called out, Obi's eyes grew misty.
Obi heard a voice from the crowd read out the words

"Ecclesiastics Chapter 3 verse 1 to four and 18 to 21, it says"
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance

I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath ; humans have no advantage over animals.

Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Obi tried so hard to concentrate to what the priest was passionately teaching but the more she heard the words, the more she felt that God deserted her. If there was a time for everything, shouldn't He have known that the time was not right for her mother to die.

"Dearly beloved as we have gathered here to mourn our own sister, late Mrs Uzoma Virginia Egesiuka, let us also remember! to amend our ways for no one knows when our maker will call us home.
Our sister has gone to answer to God, to make account for her existence on earth. So today ask yourself this very important question!
When you are called home by our heavenly father, would he receive you with open arms? Or would he cast you away? "