Death is rude.
I remember that was the first thought that came to me when I lost my dad about a decade ago. And it has stayed with me since, every time a death really hits me.
I have an easy relationship with the idea of death. I don’t fear it. I don’t worry about it. I see it as much a fact of life as life. But this is why I am human: despite all that knowing, sometimes death still shocks me, silences me, or makes me scream out in the middle of a restaurant in Victoria Island as it did yesterday morning when I heard the news that someone very dear to me and so many others had passed.
“Emilia died this morning,” was the message.
I let out an involuntary scream, shocking my friend, Tolu with whom I was just laughing. Then I literally started shaking. She had to stand up to steady me. Then I began to tear up.
Death is f__king rude.
Emilia was my co-founder. We founded my first business together, and launched The Future Awards, Rubbin’ Minds, and others together.
It is perhaps because of Emilia (and Adebola) that I even found the courage to do something I always thought I would never do: be an entrepreneur.
Emilia passed on Friday, after a very brief illness that we still cannot understand.
Death is rude.
How can we be talking about Emilia in the past tense?
How can I be listening to her mother wail, her heart shattered this morning about Emilia?
Emilia sha?
How can Adebola and I be having conversations about internment ceremonies? Like, how?
How can someone who gave so many so much life, and still does even in death, have lost hers?
Today, I grieve Emilia, along with all those who knew, loved, cherished her.
But we refuse to mourn like those who have no hope.
Death will not have the final say.
Read the piece as published on Chude’s personal newsletter on January 31, 2021.
Read her obituary on Neusroom.
Emilia Asim-Ita: Obituary of the communications expert who helped others bring their dreams to life
