That day was on Wednesday, my dad has been hospitalized for months now, and only Fr. Charles comes to administer the necessary sacraments to him. He comes perhaps four times from a different perspective per week.
And if for any reason he doesn’t meet up to see my dad, he calls and apologizes to him. Meanwhile, the relationship between these two folks has gone depth from the sacrifices Fr. has been making to see that my dad survives heart disease.
Later on, I came to realize that my dad once donated blood to his own Fr. unknowingly while they cried for emergency transfusion in a private hospital and during this time my dad took my mum to give birth to me.
As the story continues to unfold itself, Fr. Charles was 19 years old when he lost his mum. He is the only child of his parents. Unfortunately, even on that very day, his dad did not survive in that private hospital.
Now, an orphan. He was consoled by those in the hospital yet, for my dad he saw something beyond consolation in Charles then, he adopted him home. He stayed with us for years even though I was still a child until he got admitted into a religious house.
However, for years, there was no communication between us. They took him outside his own country until he was ordained a priest and sent to Nigeria to raise vocation for their congratulations after everything.
So, like every good person would do; now Fr. Charles tried to locate us when he came to Nigeria where he found out that Dad was hospitalized and it had been for a while.
From his appearance, I could tell how sober he was and ever since that day, he has combined hospital visitation with his ministry. During the times he spent with us there, Dad was happy, especially knowing that his son was a priest.
Much later, we didn’t hear from Fr. Charles after trying to reach out to him. And that was Wednesday, the day, I lost my dad. My entire world. A few days later, Fr. Charles showed up looking different from his physics. He knows already that Dad is gone.
However, I came to learn things more within this period; Fr. Charles was also struggling with health but kept it quiet just to ensure that Dad was fine. Apart from that, Wednesday of the same day that dad died was when he was discharged from the hospital.
So, before he came back to see us at the hospital Dad had passed on. The worst of it all was that he was not using his vehicle because of some faults. I saw him coming out from a public transport.
Choose your lesson
Purest-Ink-✍️✍️✍️