Anya, I Cannot Say Goodbye

It was a beautiful Sunday morning.
I have just finished praying in my daily early morning worship to thank the Almighty God for the wonderful joy of being alive to see another new day.
Then I received the phone call. It was from one of my closest cousins.
“Do you know that Anya is dead?” Okotie asked.
“How would I know when nobody told me so?” I replied in shock.
“I called to let you know,” he said plaintively.
I was speechless for a while.
Anya was dead!
Anya, who relocated to South Africa in 2000, because he was bored of living in Nigeria.
Anya who was the closest to me in the 1990s and we even lived together for months in his flat.
Anya, who was the handsomest of his brothers and was the favourite of the girls and women in the neighborhood and in our hometown,
Anya, who taught me so many things, both the good and the bad facts of life on earth and made me wiser,
Anya was dead.
Another call came.
It was from my Sweetest.
She sent me a text message that I should call her.
I could not respond immediately.
I did not tell Hope, the Publisher of Supple magazine the bad news of the loss of my cousin Anya. I did not want to spoil his day. I kept it to myself until later in the evening. We drove to Okotie’s residence on Alhaji Kalejaiye Street in Shomolu, Lagos. It’s his late father’s house where Anya and I shared many things as we lived like one family. Okotie and Anya lived together in their father's house whilst two of the elder brothers lived in Canada and the UK. The one in the UK has returned to Nigeria and was not in when Hope and I visited the family to comfort the bereaved. They are the only children of my late uncle and aunt.
Some memories are forever
The memories that will linger
The memories of the good times and the bad times
The unforgettable memories of those we cannot forget.

The memories of Anya filled my mind.
I cannot say goodbye to Anya.