THE STUDENT I HAVE LOST

It is always sad when older people have to bury the younger ones. The natural wish has always been that people will depart from this world in the order in which they arrived. In that way, the young will bury the old without the latter ever having to bury the former. But since life is what it is, people can and do die, regardless of age.

My niece is being buried today. She is Fri Ndango. She died recently in Bamenda. Fri had been ill for some time and had actually come on and off it. However, while I was making preparations for her burial, one of my students at the University of Buea also died. His was more shocking because unlike my niece who had been ill for some time, the student – Sama Randy – was ill only briefly, after which his condition degenerated and he succumbed to the cold hands of death. Randy will be buried this coming weekend in his father’s village of Pinyin.

Randy was one of the most courteous of my students in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Buea. He was usually smiling or just in a good mood, but hardly upset. Less than a year ago while visiting Kumba, I worshiped at a Presbyterian Church there. After the service I went over to the pastor to greet him. I did not know him but as it turned out, he already knew me. He said I was his son's lecturer and that the son often talked about me at home. When I asked who the son was, he said it was Randy. "I remember him very well!", I said. Randy's father called his mother and introduced me to her. After I returned to Buea, I rang up Randy and told him I had just been with his parents. He was very excited. Contact between him and I became regular from that day until I got the bomb shell of his death last week. All I can say is that God knows best.