Death of a queen, by Lasisi Olagunju

(Monday lines 2 published in the Nigerian tribune Monday 16 June 2025).

“There is a kind of price for life,” says Charles A. Curran, and that price, says, “moves in the direction of death”. Death does not blow trumpet but we all know that it is coming. It is the unalterable final part of the life process. Some of us spend the whole life to worry about death; Some simply ignore it; Some fear him mortally; Some are looking forward to the hour. Whatever you and I choose, the final part is that we must all die in one way or another. It is fate to work.

On Thursday afternoon last week, I was with Orangun of Oke Ila, Oba Adedokun Abolarin, who lost his wife, Olori Solape Christiain Abolarin, exactly one week today. He was 51 years old.

I knew her; He was my wife’s friend and colleague in the Civil Service of the state of Osun. His death made us poorer here. If someone had asked the dead what he thought was the next one in his life, he probably would have said that he could not wait to become a permanent secretary. Her diligence at work was preparing for the best job. For her, death was too far -fetched to consider. He had so much ahead and a lot on his plate to deal with. But she died. We all cry its premature passage.

“We Care, God Cres” is a bold inscription on the wall of a popular Ibadan hospital. A very reasonable thing for every person and doctor to say is in that message. Regardless of the degree of care, people die, some young people, some old ones. Some disorders probe; For women, for example, the fibroids of the probe: “The exact cause is unknown” is what comes out. Modern medicine and its prophets are confused from time to time despite the progress of humanity over the centuries. That’s why from the beginning of creation, anatomy women and strange deaths appear together, constantly holding each other. The German doctor, Eucharius Roeslin (1470-1526) told his readers in 1513 that “many (are) the dangers, dangers and crowds that the possibility for women …” Read about him and because he wrote his “der Rosengarten” (the Roseto garden), later translated into “the birth of man”.

The death of our king’s wife recalls the awareness of an publisher, editorialist and queen of extremely brain letters, Mee (May Ellen Ezekiel). Married to Richard Mofe Damijo, Mee died after fibroid surgery on March 23, 1996 in the best hospital of his day in Lagos. He was 40 years old. The uterine course (and the cause) of its transition was identical to this exit in the state of Osun. The stabbed pains of the why, until eternity, the brain descend.

In the midst of a stream of personal pain and family complaints, Oba Abolarin has eliminated the pearls of his company with the deceased Olori: “Many of the things that people praise me, he was the architect. All those who had been accepted by her as a person. Oke Ila and Osun State …” The men and women of the King present in agreement.

The mourning OBA continued to puncture visitors and friends with stories of the great bond he shared with the deceased. Feeling it and looking at the histrionics that accompanied what was saying reminded me of a passage on intimacy, death and pain: “… with the death of a person and our experiences of pain comes … the clearest vision of what that person and the relationship have meant for us in life” (Brian Tie Vries in the “pain of intimacy”).

When a dear person dies, everyone plays periodically and ask for their efforts. We all lost people whose death left us to ask us if we did enough to keep them around. I wonder until tomorrow if I put everything I should keep my parents alive despite their old age. With the immediate younger sister of the deceased next to him to revisit, between sobs, the stories of the last moment, I heard Oba abolarin asking himself repeatedly what he should have done that he did not do. “I’m a person on fire, so what happened?” He didn’t ask anyone in particular.

Those who lived it swear that the death of a spouse is an experience that alters life. They say it’s difficult. I read in “Vedation and preventive intervention” by Phyllis R. Silverman who during courtship, people commonly tried for the wedding, but “no similar ritual prepares the individual for the inevitable resolution of the wedding when one of the partners will die”.

Between this husband and his deceased wife there is a 12 -year -old prince, Tadeniawo. And I heard Kabiyesi wonders how he would have faced: “I am almost 70 years old. How is a 70 -year -old man who takes care of a twelve year old, all alone? The boy was very close to his mother”. The OBA said; Then he continued and forward even while fighting to wear courage.

It must be strong; He is an OBA, husband of the whole city. One of the alliances he had with those who had been on the throne before him is that his durum wood had never had to pour tears. Ako Ii Kò Gbodò S’oje. He managed it so well so far. We continue to pray for him.

“Death, you will die” comes as a verdict of the English poet of the seventeenth century, John women. In that holy sonnet, women asks “death” to not be proud because “a short sleep, we wake up eternally,/ and death will no longer be …”

May the soul of Olori abolarin rests in perfect peace. May God take care of his husband and child and all his loved ones.

Related