A friend of mine died on Sunday.
The finality of the above statement makes goosebumps break out all over my body. Mary Fatima Abu nee Taidi was a friend, big sister, sometime boss and travel companion, lovable personality and now she is gone. Just like that.
I met Mary eight years ago in the ancient city of Kano in northern Nigeria, where she was the President of the local AIESEC chapter. We were there for a conference and we, who hadnt met her had heard stories of the 'Iron Lady' of Kano. The reality turned out to be much more pleasant.
Smart, beautiful, warm and out-going just begin to describe her. She had a sharp tongue and a sharper wit that could be deployed to leave her listeners in gales of laughter or reduce a deliberately obtuse individual to wondering why his/her clothes AND skin were not in tatters on the floor! She never suffered fools gladly but did not deliberately set out to hurt anyone.
The irony is that she was the first to reply to a wedding announcement by a mutual friend on an email list I belong to. This was on Friday. On Sunday she was dead! Expecting her first child; having gotten married last year, I dont want to imagine the pain and grief her husband is going through right now!
A friend wrote this in a tribute to her, "Like every one of us, Mary was in her prime, building a career and a family for herself. Her hopes, aspirations and ambitions could not have been much different from ours, individually and collectively"
The only difference now is that her aspirations have been cut short. It could have been anyone one of us. It could have been me. More than my own near miss incident in December last year, in a way I cannot fully explain, Mary's death has made me more aware of my mortality. It has made me realize that we REALLY NEED to live life to the fullest and do those things that really matter.
From the deluge of memorials, tributes and moving eulogies that Mary's death has invoked literally from all around the world, Mary obviously lived her tragically cut-short life to the fullest!
O Death, Where is Thy Sting? (here in our wrenching hearts, DAMN YOU!)
Sleep Well Mary Fatima Taidi-Abu!
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