As
I cleaned glass from my hands and clothes we attempted to rush Yemi
to the clinic. He was unconscious but breathing. We arrived at one ‘clinic’
(using that term very loosely) but they wouldn’t see him. The trauma
was too serious. Back in the car and on the road looking for another.
Yemi was taken inside. I waited in the car cleaning glass. The brother
was in agony. I dropped four coins to Orisa Esu, the Orisa of the Crossroads
of Life. Yemi was pronounced dead. The brother became uncontrollable.
He tried unsuccessfully to attack the nurse who gave him the foreboding
news. How would he explain this to his mother and father? Yemi was dead!
How could it be!? He was just talking to him before he took his fatal
step into the arms of Orisa Iku. The brother would not release Ayo from
his obligation. He was demanding to be taken home to get his parents.
Ayo could not leave without being released by the brother. Yemi’s
body was left at the clinic while we went further back into Lagos to
get the parents. I heard the wailing begin before they came out of
the
house. The father looked at the hood of the car and windshield. Ayo,
Adebisi, the parents, and the brother piled into the small stick shift
and we headed back to the clinic. Maybe now, this will be over.
All the way to the clinic I sat in a chorus of pain expressed in the
language of my ancestors. I was numb. The clinic, and more chanting
and crying. But not to loosen the hold on my Ori (consciousness, awareness)
too soon, the parents wanted to take the dead body to their Christian
Preacher so that he could raise it from the dead. After all, the preacher
had four days to accomplish his miracle. More chanting and crying on
the very long ride to the church, with Yemi’s dead body now in
the back seat with the parents and Adebisi, and Ayo, the brother, and
myself in the front. The preacher would not come out of the church to
see the body. He sent an assistant out to say a brief prayer and send
us on our way. The father declared that he would never attend a Christian
church again. More chanting and crying on the very long ride to a main
hospital. A doctor came out and again Yemi was diagnosed as dead, and
the parents were told to take Yemi’s body home since they had no
reason to admit him to the hospital. Back into the car and further back
into Lagos to return the family and Yemi’s body to their home.
It’s now about 5:15 pm and approaching the midnight hour. Will
it be too late for us to drive to Ile-Ife? I left a coin as an ebo
(sacrifice)
to Orisa near the families property. Adebisi was determined to get
me out of Lagos and to his father as he had been instructed. We decided
to drive to Ile-Ife. Into the night, one headlight, one windshield
wiper,
wind blowing through the cracked windshield; of course Orisa Shango
would send rain to further add to my ordeal. The Universe must laugh
quite a bit. Anyway, it did wash the blood from the windshield in front
of me and seem to settle some of the Ase (spiritual energy) that had
gripped me for most of this day.
One of the Odus (Oracles of Ifa) in my reading had stated that I should ‘make an ebo to avoid the consequences of normal day-to-day activities
and Divine Justice’. I made the ebo. My experience with Yemi’s
death and his family’s life had fulfilled that aspect of my reading.
We arrived at Chief Adeyela Adelekan’s home at about 10:30 pm
Nigeria time. And Orisa had taken me on a journey that assured that
nothing
else that I was about to experience would be shocking to me. I was
prepared now for anything. After greeting Chief Adelekan briefly (this
was our
first time meeting and speaking face to face) I was driven to Obafemi
Awolowo University Campus a few miles away where I would be spending
the next nine days.
