Will the tears ever stop? Within 24 hours I have learnt so much about the frailty of life and time. It’s all just breath, vapour and shadows.
Chris Ero, my love, no one understands my pain. I try to tell them. I try to explain why I can’t stop crying or why I couldn’t sleep at night because I keep dreaming about death and none of it is was yours. Maybe because I don’t understand it myself.
Ours was a love story never told. I’m not sure if God was trying to protect me from the pain of loving you more and losing you now, or that you knew this was coming and you protected me from it. I must say I hate the way this happened. Maybe you shouldn’t have called me that day. Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to be my friend, you should have left it at professional work. You had to let me know you. Let me be friends with you. You had to let me love you and then you pushed me out and left this world.
Before I proceed with the tribute for the sake of #PSSeries; others in my shoe, I have to say this.
Pain; Maybe we have experienced pain in one way or another but what we can agree on is that pain finds a way to always be felt.
I thought I had it in me to endure pain; then I lost a special friend.
A line from one of my favourite book reads “that’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt”. The pain of losing a loved one demands to be felt. It reaches into your core, pulls on everything you are and ensures you feel it, at some point you think you cannot recover from it, but like all pain, it ebbs away if you let it be, don’t ignore it because that way it won’t leave, don’t nurse it either because it won’t leave.
Feel it, embrace it, let it go through you and then you would find peace in the understanding that comes on the journey of pain.
Death; losing someone you love makes death so obvious to you. You realize that death is so final. Death can be a revealer of how much you love someone. It shows you a new truth that you can love someone more in their death than when they were alive.
It gets you remembering the little details about your time spent with that person. You desperately try to hold on to it all. So you spend time replaying your time together, reading your past conversations and reminiscing.
In the darkest hours, God brings us the best people. People who pray for us, encourage us. Give us a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to pour it all out. In my loss, I found strength in God and the people around me. I felt people pray for me, and share their pain and death stories. Lastly, I wrote a lot, it helped me get it out there and preserve memories that am sure not even time can make them less vivid
Death of a loved one brought me pain, in pain I found understanding about death and I found my healing.
…the tribute continues
I feel desperately this need to tell the world about our story, to inform them about the uniqueness of it and how you loved me beyond your feelings, how you decided we needed to be the best people for each other. Your biggest struggle was reconciling the Chris in your head with the one who is now and you constantly told me you didn’t want to drag anyone into your life till you did that, I was a bit angry at you and told you then we should stop being friends, you told me there was no way you could let that happen, that you would try to keep away only if I ask you to stay away…. I couldn’t do that. So like a moth to the flame, we kept attempting to be friends until death took you.
Every time we spoke whether it was in-between weeks, you always told me how much you missed me and I think I only ever told you I missed you too once, oh how I wish I said what was on my mind then and now, I miss you every day Chris, and right now with you gone, my heart is broken.
I keep attempting to show the world how special you are or what we had was, I feel this desperate need to tell the world I lost a King, a Lover, to warn them that the things we sometimes take for granted would not always be there, to share our story, our infinity within the number of days.
I have known you for only a couple of months but I feel I know everything about you. Guess what Chris your set back in the past is what most people remember you for! I remember that day by the waterside when you told me about your past and growing up when you told me how you had to repeat a class because you failed math and how you headed down a destructive path till you found redemption and then your superpowers in math! Lol. You told me how passionate you are about teaching kids and I listened to you talk about the kids you teach the ones you were worried about who wasn’t doing as well as you wanted. When they had exams you acted like you had exams too! Jeez, you are so passionate about those kids and their learning.
You know what makes me smiles these days is that I know you and when I think about what you would do if you are looking down at me right now or say I laugh, then I start to cry again because I would do anything to hear you say it in person.
How do I talk about you without talking about your heart for marketing and branding, the natural guru at it, I dreamed of your marketing brand empire you know.
You see we never dated but we shared something strong and deep that most people dating either never share or take time to get, a sync of minds and heart.
I made you promise that every day when we talk you won’t go to bed without saying goodnight. You went to sleep without saying goodnight Chris. I remember when I told you to reduce how you talk to me, you tried to go a day without talking to me, let me confess it was as hard for me as it was for you, the next day early in the morning you called me and you said that was really hard to do! But hope I am happy you gave me space lol, you have given me too much space Chris I didn’t mean this type.
I have spent such a considerable time on Facebook since you died, I keep going back trying to find you in-between the pages, looking for hope, waiting for news that says “ Praise God! Chris is not dead” that God would see that this stone I feel in my chest just doesn’t look like it would go away so he brought you back so that I can show you all these things, call you a goat for leaving and then say “ oh well that’s that” you always liked my phrases.
Your heart for God, your heart for your country, your love for your family, your ability to always share in the little you have (Chris the twins that live with you why didn’t you think of them before you decided to leave this world?) Your passion for helping kids learn ( you would have stayed for them Chris), your passion for good business, your determination to use your talents to make it in life, your desire to provide for your family someday, all of that lives on my friend.
I would miss fighting with you, arguing about the little things till we are not sure what we are talking about again. Surely I would miss you picking up words and phrases I say a lot. I would miss you referring to me as the new generation and talking about how old you are (rolling my eyes). I would miss that stammer when you get too excited, would miss those high cheeks when you smile and that funny beard I kept wanting to ask you to shave off (the struggle to belong to beard gang lol it is not meant for you!). Definitely would miss your toned muscles and body in black shirts on hot days simply because you are such a show-off. I would miss teaching you about some modern things lol
I would miss reporting my day to you! Jeez you really wanted to know how my day went! You had me memorizing my days because you would insist I recount it all! I would miss you urging me to see Lagos beyond the Island; I would miss you talking about basketball and me boasting about how I would beat you at it. You promised to teach me how to swim, you promised me a date on the beach, you promised me your mums fish and onion stew with yam, you promised to teach me math for my exams, you promised you wouldn’t just leave…..
You kept asking me to watch money ball, you said you connected with the character, I never did I still haven’t, then you sent me the song and told me that sums up your feelings for me (such a weird song) but right now its my song for you, Chris hope you enjoyed this show of life, I hope you enjoyed every bit of it because since you left the seat close to mine I have wanted my money back but the show continues so am going to try to enjoy the rest of it and I would tell you all about it when we meet in heaven okay….
I’m writing this so I can move on. I would try not to look at our messages or your Facebook page anymore. I’m letting go. Good-bye Chris Ero, it was good loving you for the short time that I did. God keep you close and I pray to learn from your life, to bridge the gap between the Ellen I want to be and the one I am now, to spread love and live a life beyond me, to be larger than life, to turn my bad days to my best.
Goodbye, my friend and lover….
Written by: Ellen Ukpi
This tribute was first posted on Ellen’s blog here; http://www.perfectlyflawedlady.blogspot.com/
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Read also;
WHAT IS LIFE : TRIBUTE TO MYLES MUNROE
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