A Word from the Dead

By Johnson Babalola

It was a hectic day at work. I had been retained by two individuals to represent them in their deportation matters. As I was thinking through the legal arguments to make in their cases, my phone rang. It was ZB, a close friend.

“Hey bro,” I answered.

“I have bad news,” he said, his voice low. “AK, the wife of TY, is dead.”

Shocked, I asked what had happened.

“I don’t have the details yet,” he replied. “Let’s visit TY at 7 p.m. tonight.”

We agreed he would pick me up at 6:30 p.m.

ZB arrived at my home exactly on time. As we drove, he sighed deeply.

“Bro, there’s really nothing to life,” he said, shaking his head. “Procrastination is bad. I knew AK was ill. I kept saying I’d visit her, but I got busy with my own issues. Now I’m visiting her after her death. I feel guilty.”

“No, don’t blame yourself,” I said quietly. “I didn’t even know she was sick. That tells you how long it’s been since I last saw her or TY.”

We arrived at TY’s house. He opened the door as we offered a small plant and our greetings. He was calm, holding a frail-looking dog in his arms.

“The dog is fifteen years old,” TY said softly. “Diabetic and blind. He’s nearing the end of his life too. He’s my only companion now.”

“So sorry,” I said. “May AK’s soul rest in peace. What happened?”

He was silent for about a minute before responding. “She fell outside and broke her legs. Complications followed, and she didn’t recover. In old age, we must be careful how we walk, where we step, the floor beneath us… we must all pay attention to our environment.”

“So sorry,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

“Are you coping okay?” ZB asked gently.

“I’m trying,” TY said. “We were married for fifty years. The kids live in different countries with their families. So it’s just me and the dog. I’m learning to do things I never did in half a century — laundry, cleaning, small chores. She handled those. We had that understanding. I miss her terribly.”

“Funeral arrangements?” ZB asked after a pause.

“All done,” TY replied. “She was cremated. Only one of the children could make it. She had prepared them not to stress themselves flying down. She wanted it simple.”

“Very simple,” ZB said quietly, “but admirably so.”

“Yeah,” TY nodded. “She didn’t want any ceremony or crowd. She said people who didn’t come to see her when she was alive shouldn’t come to see her when she was dead.”

That statement stayed with me long after we left — “People who didn’t come to see me when I was alive shouldn’t come to see me when I’m dead.”

It felt like a word from the dead — a sober message from someone who had seen through the vanity of social performance and the emptiness of delayed affection. AK’s words pierced through our busy excuses and comfortable neglect, exposing the truth we often hide behind: that we wait until people are gone before we remember how much they mattered.

Her words were not bitter; they were instructive — a reminder to show up now, to call, visit, and care now, to love in the present tense, not in memorial posts or eulogies.

We live in a world where many invest more emotion in funerals than in friendships, more presence at burials than at birthdays. AK’s message cuts through all that noise — urging us to value the living while we can still touch them, speak to them, and share moments that matter.

Indeed, AK spoke — not with her lips, but with the echo of her life and the simplicity of her final wish.

That was her last gift to us all — a word from the dead, reminding the living how to truly live.

*Johnson Babalola a Canadian lawyer, is a specialist in immigration and refugee law.

@jblawpro

www.jblawpro.com