A coma. A long coma, it must be. I took a curious look at my nephew on his bed and yelled his name. “Dotun! Dotun! Dotun!
Silence. No muscle twitched. No brow squeezed. No flexing or stretching at my rude invasion of his joyful sleep.
A lone ray from a torchlight picked his face from the dark recess of his room. It was my brother, his father, that switched on the torchlight. And saw what any father would pray not to see till death- a son, helpless, dead.
He had wanted to come alone. Since Thursday, his efforts to reach Dotun by phone were unsuccessful. With each passing hour and unanswered call, anxiety and curiosity took over. Dotun replied calls or sent texts as soon as he received them.
So he called the children to find out if any one had conversed with Dotun. All of them remembered having a group chat on Wednesday.
By Friday evening, the situation had taken the character of an emergency, hence the decision to get to his apartment early Saturday to find the truth. I volunteered to drive him there. Seeing him would give us the opportunity to take him to a hospital if he was sick or admonish him for causing unnecessary fright if it was work that kept him away from his phones.
What has become clear in the last 24 houra is that he had taken a Covid-19 test and was positive. He was placed on drugs by the doctor.He was taking his drugs religiously.So what happened?What went wrong? How did sleep lead to death? Why did he think it was something he could handle? Perhaps he didn’t want to put everyone on edge. So many questions of omission and commission that we must leave to God, the omniscient, the All-Knowing. He giveth and taketh.
Dotun Bamigbetan was(I hate to put him the past)a First Class material whose expertise attracted top firms such as Deloitte and KPMG. Gentle, hardworking and easy-going. May his gentle soul rest in peace. May God give us the fortitude to bear this huge loss.
