How do you write about a child you didn’t even hold but know much about?
How do you write a piece about a toddler you never even beheld physically yet can point out among several other children?
How do you write about the tragic death that really doesn’t concern you, lets face it, should same befall you, neither of the parents would call you because they don’t know you?
Ifeanyi Adeleke, the three year old son of Davido is undisputedly the most popular child in Nigeria…even in death.
You don’t have to like Davido to know about his adorable son with his partner, Chioma. Ifeanyi practically grew before our eyes. We saw him as an infant, we monitored him online as he grew. We knew him like he was a neighbour’s child who always came by to play with other kids. His cherubic face is easily recognized when we glean celebrity babies. The boy is (was) cute, we love the fact that he is (was) the beloved son of an artiste we have come to admire and follow assiduously. What’s more, his parents were finally coming together after a rift we took sides in and marriage talks has been slated for next year.
So Ifeanyi is (was) our boy, our lil man.
I lost my sleep the night the news of this child hit. I frantically searched several platforms, hoping it isn’t true. I scrolled to see the news that our beloved baby boy, Ifeanyi, had died in the swimming pool of his father’s house.
I lost my joy because know him personally or not, no parent should have to go through the loss of a child from a preventable death…even an accident!
How do you wrap this around your head, that a baby boy, so full of life, so cute you want to hold him as you view him on your phone, got drowned with supposedly hundreds of eyes watching him?
Woe betide the day the swimming pool was built!
Woe betide the day the nanny who was hired to watch him was employed!
Woe betide the person who caused the chef and nanny to each assume the other had the baby boy when they suddenly discovered him missing!
Woe betide the invitation to the event that led Chioma and Davido out of town and thus out of their son’s immediate reach!
Woe betide Chioma or Davido’s decision to even honour the invite!
You see, when this sort of tragedy happens, every parent will blame themselves; their actions or inaction. They will tear at each other, if heaven forbid one had opted not to leave but was persuade to go by the other.
They would tear at each other if the nanny hired was agreeable to one and not the other. They would locate in their heads and their hearts “warning” signs the missed or ignored about an incident that led to this tragedy…
The nanny is dead as far as I’m concerned.
She is a living corpse.
Am I saying she deliberately killed the boy, hell no! Well, unless the CCTV in the home proves it. But the fact that the child was in her care when this tragedy happened…she is dead!
Now, I’m not saying the nanny hates the boy…could be she loved him like her own. Could be she could never bear to let any harm befall the little lad but all that will go to dust as I write this piece. The fact that our beloved Ifeanyi died under her watch will forever haunt her for the rest of her life. I won’t even deal with what Chioma or Davido will do to her. Their grief will make them despise her with the uttermost hatred any human being can muster.
But accidents happen, people. May it not happen to our children and may it not happen to us.
Accidents, that’s why it is called such, an accident is: “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury… (let me add, can also end up in a tragedy…loss of life or lives) .
Oh, I wept with Chioma and Davido when I read that Davido tore his clothes and was running into the street upon hearing this horrible news of his son’s death. To say I know what that feels is to lie. I can only imagine it. Years back when my son was three years old. I was at a wedding with him, when one moment he was playing with balloons as I watched him, the next moment, he simply disappeared…for three hours. I was dead, mad, raving lunatic those three hours of searching for my son.
Horrible images of him filled my head and I would tear off my clothes as I begged people to help me find my son…we found him. But before I found him, I died. God revived me.
But this son isn’t coming back, this is why I weep again for the young parents.
This little one isn’t going to call for mummy or daddy in the way his parents have come to love and even cherish hearing it from him.
The sound of his feet, his giggles, his unique way of pronouncing words that his young tongue hasn’t mastered, will never be heard again. The way he plays in the water, eats his food or refuses the same, will never again be seen by his adoring parents.
His toys will lay limp, his bed will still carry his baby smell for some time; his voice will call for his parents in their dreams for days, months, make that years to come and they would each jerk awake… to realise Ifeanyi will never come running to welcome them back home again.
But he will be remembered for the rest of their lives; his grave site, though considered a taboo for his parents to behold, will become for them a shrine of their union. A place they would visit for years to come. His photographs will grace their homes and screen saver for many more years.
To say they are in pain is to understate the obvious; the days will roll in one lump for them and when one of them begins to slowly climb out of that well of grief and depression, the other may begin to resent it.
Experts know, psychologists will tell you, that the death of a child could either bind the parents or tear them apart.
I hope Davido and Chioma will be the couple we will cite in the former.
I hope Davido’s heart will play songs that thrive beyond a dirge and new culinary skills tease Chioma’s hands.
It is my hope, too, that they block out noises from false and lying lips of those claiming to have prophesied Ifeanyi’s death, their united hearts is what will pull them through this dark days and their trust in God.
I hope they heal from this and I hope the sun will rise again for them, soon.
May the soul of our lil boy Ifeanyi Adeleke, rest in peace.
photo credit