There are dates that the calendar remembers, and there are dates that the heart refuses to forget.
The 7th of June is one of such days for me.
Once upon a time, it was my birthday. A day of laughter, greetings, prayers, and celebration. A day when family and friends gathered to rejoice over another year of life. But six years ago, the meaning of that day changed forever.
On that fateful day, I was preparing for what should have been a memorable birthday celebration. Pots were on fire. People were cooking. A live goat had been slaughtered. The atmosphere was festive. We were expecting her arrival from Lagos.
She arrived.
But not in the manner we had hoped.
She came to us and gave up the ghost.
And just like that, my birthday ceased to be a birthday.
Since that day, I have struggled with dates. Birthdays slip away unnoticed. Anniversaries lose their significance. Eventful days no longer carry the excitement they once did. Perhaps grief has a way of rearranging the mind. Perhaps when a traumatic event becomes permanently attached to a particular date, the brain quietly chooses survival over celebration.
The experts may call it traumatic grief, anniversary reaction, or emotional avoidance. I simply call it living with a wound that remembers.
Every year, when June 7 approaches, my heart does not prepare for celebration.
It prepares for remembrance.
But if her death was painful, what followed was even more profound.
The day Abiola died, something else died with her.
The unity of the Olasehinde family.
She was not merely a unifier.
She was the unit of unity itself.
She was the living bridge between distant relatives and forgotten branches of the family tree. She carried relationships the way women carry handbags effortlessly and everywhere.
Many times, my phone would ring.
“Ayomide, speak with this person.”
And before I could ask who was calling, she would begin a long genealogical explanation.
“He is the son of our father's most senior step-sister.”
Or,
“She is related to your grandfather's maternal lineage.”
And I would wonder in amazement:
How did she even find these people?
How did she keep all these connections alive?
How did she remember everyone?
Today, many of those links have disappeared into silence.
Numbers have changed.
Relationships have faded.
Faces have become memories.
Conversations have become stories.
The family tree still stands, but many of its branches no longer touch.
The truth reveals itself most clearly during festive seasons.
There was a time when celebrations felt like a gathering of rivers flowing into one ocean.
Now, they feel like separate streams travelling in different directions.
Bímbọ́lá is navigating her own world.
Ayomide is chasing survival and purpose through the endless demands of life.
Your Kusibe is shepherding his own flock across distant horizons.
Each of us moving.
Each of us breathing.
Each of us existing.
Yet somehow, not quite together.
Like stars occupying the same sky but separated by unimaginable distances.
The Yoruba have long understood what modern psychology now explains.
When the central binding force disappears, systems gradually lose cohesion.
What psychologists describe as disintegration of social bonds, our fathers understood through wisdom.
"Osan já, orun di ọ̀pá." - When the rope snaps, the bow of the hunter becomes a mere stick.
And another saying comes to mind:
"Àgbà ò sí, ìlú bàjẹ́; bàálé ilé kú, ilé dàwọ́rọ̀." - When elders disappear, communities falter; when the head of a household dies, the household scatters.
You held no throne.
Yet somehow, you were the rope.
And when the rope snapped, we discovered how many things it had quietly been holding together.
Even your father could not survive the weight of your departure.
Five months after you left, he followed.
At his age, grief was a mountain too steep to climb.
Perhaps there are pains that medicine can soothe.
And there are losses that only eternity can explain.
Your mother is still with us. By God's grace, she continues her journey among the living. But the labour of gathering scattered pieces is heavy on her shoulders.
Some people are builders of walls. Some are keepers of gates. Some are custodians of memories.
You were all three.
And in your absence, we have come to appreciate how much work love was doing behind the scenes.
Today, six years later, I write not merely to mourn you.
I write to acknowledge you.
To celebrate you.
To thank you.
For every call.
For every reunion.
For every connection.
For every family gathering that happened because you made it happen.
For every relationship you nurtured before we realised relationships needed nurturing.
As I mark another birthday, I do so with mixed emotions.
Life asks me to count my years.
Memory asks me to count my losses.
And somewhere between gratitude and grief, I find myself thinking of you.
Abiola.
The one who died on my birthday.
The one who left with the unity of the Olasehinde family.
May your memory continue to challenge us to rebuild what was lost.
May your labour of love not perish with you.
And may God grant us the wisdom to gather again around the same table that once felt so natural under your watch.
Until we meet again.
Written by Ayomide Abiona
On my birthday, and in loving memory of Abiola omo Baba Abiona
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