Err..

"it's a beautiful life, oh-oh-oh-oh
it's a beautiful life, oh-oh-oh-oh...
- Beautiful life, Ace of Base

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I say this with the hope that we all made it. December was a menage of feelings for me, I celebrated life i.e. the birth of my first niece Zoe which made me the proudest and happiest aunty on earth (post for another day)...

I mourned i.e. the death of an ex-colleague/salsa dance partner at the company's xmas party/on-the-way-to-becoming-my friend which totally threw me for a loop! I danced with him on the 19th of December and our mutual friends teased us no end about liking each other, then i got a phone call on the 26th;

L: (in a very weird voice) hello Smaragd
Me: hey! how are u babe? u are missing me already abi?i'm not in lagos o...
and i ramble on in my usual way
L: "long silence"
Me: oh..kay, what's up? why aren't u saying anything?
L: S is dead!

How was I supposed to handle that? how was I supposed to process that? I was shell-shocked! I know people die and bla bla, but not my friends! my friends dont die. I dont see them last week and bury them next week! There I was carrying a two-week old baby, assuring her that she had a full life ahead of her and being overly happy that she was with and suddenly life looked so bleak... so very like trees look in winter.

Becuse I refused to believe my friend, I called S's number, it rang and I began to hope until a woman who identified herself as his aunty picked up the phone;

Me: hello?
Strange voice: hello, who's this?
Me: Smaragd, S's friend, pls may I speak with him?
Strange voice: I'm his aunty, and err... something happened...
Me: Oh My God!
S's Aunty: so u've heard something then, it's true.
Me: I'm so sorry ma (and i dropped the phone like it was hot)

I just sat staring into space for hours after that with no tears. S had so much promise, he was very intelligent, very hardworking, very dedicated, very young, very handsome and unusual. Unusual because his looks didnt go to his head, he was very grounded and I was just getting to know him outside work.

It hurt no end. Still does. I could not bring myself to attend the service of songs, I just could not. I dont even know why I'm writing this cuz my intention was a bubbly post. Sorry guys, for dumping this on you all so early in the year, I'm really sorry.

I was going to write about the new development in Lagos. I'm sure we all know that Okadas (motorcycles) are here to stay as a means of transportation, so we know that trying to eradicate them is just as hopeless as believeing that there'll be electrical supply when I get home this evening.

So, it's been decided that if we cannot get rid of the necessary evil that the motorbikes have become, we can at least make them safer. Which means I have had to wear 4 different helmets today, because I have biked to the bank twice (back and forth) from my office! I wore the first one because of the novelty, the second because it looked new, the third i hesitated to wear because it was more an engineer's hat than a helmet and I flat out refused to wear the fourth one because I realised that this new inventive is the fastest way to spread head lice and God-knows-whatever-else people can catch from sharing hats!

there is only one solution as far as i'm concerned, I must buy my car sooner than i originally planned BUT while that's being processed, I need to keep my corporate cab driver closer than i did last year AND I need to get a scarf or a hanky that will by all means PROTECT my head from the interior of these helmets and all the tiny soldiers that they will pretty soon convey!

Thanks everyone for being a part of my 2008, for giving me a cyber family, blogging could not and would not have been what it was without you guys and I most likey would not have learnt as much as I did in 08 without your blogs. Thanks for the laughter ( oh i had a lot of that..."lol-ing", "Rotflmao-ing", just "lmao-ing" and the tears (yea, i had a dose of that as well). I believe 2009 will be better than 2008. Despite all that happened, it still is a beautiful life after all.

Welcome to the beginning of the best part of the rest of our lives.