How To Save A Life
A phone call can change everything.
In December of 2020, a lot of things happened both good and bad but one that was also serious was the virus that shall not be named, that had been going about.
It was not the best year but my family and I decided to travel to our home country in order to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday. I really didn’t think much of the trip, rather I took it as a well-earned break from the entire year, little did I know everything was about to change.
The day of the trip arrived and I could not hold my excitement because I had a lot of people that I had missed a lot, and meeting them was going to be the highlight of the entire trip. But the journey wasn’t an easy one, it was about an eleven-hour journey by road, and just thinking it was going to be an easy open road where one would freely drive through was stating the unimaginable. We ran through every obstacle a person could run into, from bad roads to corrupt cops and law enforcement officers. But we finally arrived at our destination.
Tired from the long journey I decided to not check on any of my neighbors that live close to me, especially my childhood friend and I didn’t think much about it, because it was also quite late and I went to bed seeking a well-deserved rest.
The next day I was woken up by the loud sound of a mosque offering their morning prayers, it was about 5 am in the morning. I waited a couple of hours and decided to knock on the door of my childhood friend but I got no reply. As I knocked a few times but another neighbor of mine told me that they had left the neighborhood to somewhere else. I felt a little disappointed, but I decided to visit him as soon as possible.
A couple of days went by and I had forgotten about visiting my childhood friend, a friend of mine told me he had been asking about me online and he told her to give me his phone number. I took the number from her and said thanks and that I would get to call him. I never thought much of the number and just left it on my phone for a while.
Am not one for spirituality and everything surrounding it but my spirit or should I call it gut or intuition was just bugging me, telling me to make the phone call to him after postponing it for days but I picked my phone up went through my contact, and dialed the number.
He picked up the phone and we had a long conversation for about 30 minutes or so I had even passed the phone to my brother to have a chat with him since we were all cool. We poked fun at each other and had a good laugh and when it was time to say goodbye my last words were “Alright bro I will talk to you later” and his was “Bye”. I would never forget the smile in his voice and the laughter throughout that day.
I swear on whatever you believe in, a few days later we received the news that my childhood friend had passed within the early hours of the morning. He had been battling sickle cell anemia for the longest time and lost that battle at the age of 16. Receiving that news was one of the first times that I cried till my eyes went red.
“How To Save A Life” is a song by The Fray and it’s one of my favorite songs, it has been synonymous with suicide but this song made me wonder what would have happened if I had never made that phone call to hear the voice of one of my closest childhood friends for the last time, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself for a while.
So if there’s anyone you had been meaning to call or reach out to please do, because what I would hope is that from my story you could have the courage to do so because it’s better to get it done than not to do it at all and live with regrets.
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