Rest with the Angels.

I was working on what was meant to be today’s post when I got a phone call from a friend of mine. It’s been those weeks that have just been heavy and sometimes law school doesn’t let you breath so easy. So I was so relieved to be done with a post very long overdue.
For one, I really don’t know how to receive bad news. As a person, I try to stay happy. I try to make sure all my friends are happy. I check on people to make sure they are okay when I see them whenever I can. On the flip side I have no shock absorbers for bad news. I am those people stop functioning for a couple of seconds before I come back to reality.
So here I am on a phone call where my friend meant to be checking up on me is actually telling me my lecturer passed away. For some it’s just a lecturer. It may not be a big deal but I think she was more than that. Those who knew her will agree.
Death makes you alive to so many things, it wakes you up to the realities of life we take for granted. Just hearing that annoying alarm makes you want to break your screen but we forget how many never got that opportunity.
I avoid writing what I am going through if I am not able to camouflage it. I think it makes a writer vulnerable and I hate vulnerability unlike most writers. But today I really don’t mind using this platform to celebrate someone who’s life molded so many people to who they are.
The lady in the middle of that picture up there was my teacher. She believed in me more than I believed in myself.  I got to know her a bit better this year. I got to see beyond just a mere teacher and learnt a bit about her core.
For the sake of posterity therefore, before everyone starts thinking who will fit into her shoes and forgets how amazing she was, as our human nature betrays us, I want to share what this person I met taught me
1.She taught me to fear God.
She kept God at the centre, she always prayed for us, she always told us to pray. She may not have done it openly in class but when you had a small chat with her you’d know she really loved and feared God.
2. She taught me how to dream.
The first time we traveled I remember we sat at McDonald’s having a smoothie and she said how she loved design, how she wanted aside the whole thrill of the practice of law to actually put her work out there. A couple of weeks later when we went out to compete, she wore a dress she’d designed years before. We talked about how she could still do it and how happy she would be to get back into it. I don’t think I ever saw something excite her that much.
3.She taught me that I was just as good as everyone else if not better.
When you start doing things that other people are known for you sort of do it from a negative. Everyone is formatted to believe A should do this and not B. So when you have someone vouching for you who understands just how terrified you are, it becomes a kind of haven. Sometimes when we’d argued our case before her, she be clueless on what we were saying but she still believed we were just as capable as any team from whatever school. No matter how terrible we thought we were.
4.She taught me how to  fight till the last moment.
Being in a public university funding is everything, my case is a satellite campus so it’s twice as hard to get funding to go out and compete. I however, can’t tell you how hard she fought for us to get funding to compete for our school.
I really want to go on but i’ll close here.
The last time I saw her was in the law school lobby and I just waved. I don’t think I’d have guessed that was the final time I got to see her. It really is disheartening to write about someone in past tense. It feel like a betrayal of some sort.
The moral of the post?
Dear reader, life is a gift. One we often take for granted. Cherish moments with people. Talk to people. Ask if they are okay. Don’t be afraid to check up and wish someone a good day. Pray for your family and friends, call them, text, have coffee. We all have so much to offer and learn from each other.
I know half the time we work hard to get the life we want, but don’t be the person who chases the future forgetting the amazing present you already have.
Everyone you meet definitely has something to teach you.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to learn.
Rest easy Madam Koyier. You were pretty amazing.