For All The Saints

A truly horrible week in what had already been a seriously trying year. One of my favourite aunts died suddenly this week. So suddenly that we never even got an official diagnosis for her illness before she died. I had lost touch with her for a long time because she moved far away from the family to a rural part of Nigeria but I had spent years asking after her with nobody apparently knowing where to find her. We finally reconnected last year but I never got the chance to see her again. She was just the most wonderful person; she wasn’t perfect, none of us is, but I thought she was terrific. She had that rarest of qualities – true kindness, and she was never anything other than nice to me. How often can any of us say that about the people we know? Aunty Olu wanted nothing but the best for me and never had any hidden agendas -I can count the number of people I know who qualify for those criteria on one hand and still have fingers left over.

She was a superlative cook; seriously, you have no idea. I learnt to cook from her as much as I did from my Mother. Her fish pasties and fairy cakes are the stuff of legend. I cannot express how much colder and older the world feels without her. I try to console myself that I did what I could for her when I could, but it seems inadequate somehow. Still I know she rests in the everlasting arms; ‘ I am the resurrection and the death. He that believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. And he that lives and believes in me shall never die’. The death of Fidel Castro in the same week led me to ponder about the legacy that we leave and to compare the effect that these two deaths have had on the people connected with both the deceased. To have crowds celebrating in the street that you have died – what a testament to a wasted life. So, we redeem the time because the days are evil, and they are short. I guess the lesson is to do all the good you can for all the people we can because we will not pass this way again. A healthy, life-affirming week to you all.

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