"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the
love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us
know they are happy."- Eskimo Proverb
The elderly woman next to me picked her phone call and in no less than a minute she was bellowing into it all too dramatically. Being quite irritated at it I thought to myself, "all these our Yoruba mamas sef that can't speak quietly on phone". In a short time she hung up and was hurriedly gathering up the people she had come with, an anxious look on her face, and they all walked out of the shop. My heart quaked a bit. It was none of my business, but I couldn't help being troubled by the woman's behaviour, I felt something grave must have happened.
It was later on I would find out that a Dana Aircraft had crashed somewhere in Iju-Ishaga. My mind trailed back to that woman's conversation, I was now so sure I heard her scream "Dana ke". I really hoped she had lost nobody.
I got home, after the outing with my family and we were disappointed the news was not on the local TV stations. If not for the social media we won't have been receiving any news. CNN was quite unsurprisingly reporting on the plane crash and interviewed a few people. My Dad's phone rang every minute. Everyone wanted to know that he was okay. You see my dad travels by Dana at least twice a week. He just got back from a trip on Thursday and we could bet that he must have flown in that plane not more than once. We shivered. Everyone that called was happy to hear my dad's voice. We thanked God, but what about those people that lost their families to the crash. I mean, it could have been us, because daddy usually traveled on Sundays like that too. And the buildings the plane crashed on, the people affected, they could have been us too.
I was very disturbed and my legs kept shaking all night. I was scared, I'm still scared. But death sha :( It just comes like that. Finally CHANNELS TV caught on and they had more pictures that on CNN and a live discussion was going on .We continued to hear all kinds of stories from everywhere; DANA had only four planes, that particular plane had a mechanical fault, the plane was over 20 years old. Whether the stories were true or not, I was angry at the neglect by the people in charge and wondered what if. What if that mechanical fault had been looked into, what if they had more planes, what if those people never went on that plane.
Matters were made worse when the Manifest was published on the social media. I didn't know any of those people. Relief would describe the emotion I should have initially felt at knowing no one I knew was involved. But I thought, those people have people that knew them, that loved them, that were probably at the airport waiting to pick them up. Those people would be traumatized. I wanted to try and feel the pain those people would be going through. I went to bed quite unhappy and scared. Scared of death and the way it just comes suddenly and a person is gone. My mum raised a good point; we all pray for journey mercies, pray against accidents and thank God for his protection. But those people that died, was it because they didn't know God. They must have been people who prayed too. Well over 50% of them must have known God. But they are dead. This life is a mystery and we can only pray to God for protection, thank Him for his protection and pray for the dead and their loved ones who are dealing with the loss.
May the Souls of all Those Who Died in the Dana Plane Crash and the Souls of all the Faithful Departed Rest In Peace. Amen.
