THE DYING ASMA'U
by Umar Al-farouk
I never loved Asma'u when she was alive; when she needed to be loved back; and when the love would be meaningful and helpul to her. But Ironically, all she ever crazily loved in her life was me, and she couldn't elicit any positive emotion from me, at least a sympathy, until she died. It was after she had died, few hours ago, due to an unsuccessful heart transplant surgery that culminated in organs rejection and some unexpected complications — I became mad and started thinking that I couldn't never live without her in this world. Asma'u was diagnosed with a deadly cardiac cancer at the age of six. And since then she had been battling with it. later, when she was twelve years old, doctors recommended an urgent heart transplant for her. They added that she couldn't live beyond the next four years without a new heart. She was immediately put on the waiting list to find a heart donor, but unfortunately, she found it difficult to get one because of the rare type of blood she had; and which is a prerequisite for someone to have the same blood type with the donor — before they become the recipient of their heart. One day she was lucky to find ones, but due to some preexisting diseases with the donors, they were rejected.
Asma'u always madly loved me since our childhood. Her father was my uncle. A younger brother to my father, and after he died in a fatal automobile accident; my father took full responsibility of her. Her mother died few years earlier owing to post-natal complications, shortly after putting to bed. So she became a complete orphan. When she was moved to our house, it was already known that she was suffering from a heart disease. That made my father to shift the love he had for me then as his youngest child to her. Thereafter, I developed a passionate hatred for her for snatching my enviable position. Although I was four years older than her, but she always loved to be around me. At the notice of that, I resolved to avail myself of this opportunity to bully and maltreat her with relish, and she never, on her part, reported me to my parents. Each time my parents spotted a wound on her body and asked her how she came by it, she normally would tell them that it was an accident. My blind hatred towards her was so great that my parents even came to notice it, and on countless occasions severely punished me for that — but the severity of their punishment never changed my evil feelings for her.
After a few years, we had grown older, Asma'u's love and care for me increasingly became obvious to everyone in the house just the way my passionate hatred for her earlier had. Everyone who knew our paradox relationship began to pity her. I never, even for once pitied her, even because of her health condition; and her less chances of survival.
At the age of fifteen, it was clear she was gradually losing the battle to the heart disease. She became sickly; and all the transformations she was going through into a beautiful woman got halted by the ravages of the disease. She was always seldomly seen in the house; her studies stopped, and she was mostly bedridden. I never missed or asked about her whenever she was hospitalized. Sometimes despite her entreaties to see me, I would always refuse to show up in the hospital where she was receiving treatments. The last time I saw her was one fateful Sunday, every child in the house had washed and pressed the wrinkles on their uniforms in preparation to going to school the next day, Monday. She realized that I had been away from home since morning and seemed to never come back soon to wash my dirty uniform. She entered our room and took the uniform from my wardrobe and went out to wash them. She almost finished; while washing the trousers, a naked razor blade I forgot to remove from them (trousers) deeply cut her finger. The finger bled so much blood that she fell unconscious. And she was rushed to the hospital hurriedly. It was in the hospital the doctors said she needed an urgent blood transfusion to survive. Everyone looked petrified for they knew the pains associated with getting the blood that matched her bloodgroup. My father summoned courage and gathered all his family members for blood group tests with the hope of finding a suitable donor among us. We all sat in the reception anxiously waiting, after our blood samples had been drawn, for the outcome. Miraculously it turned out to be my blood that matched Asma'u's. Everyone was taken aback and at the same time excited. My father was there, so there was no way I could dare refuse donating two pints of my blood to her as demanded by the doctors. I left and never came back since that incident and that day.
Later, she got discharged from the hospital and returned home. Although her life never returned to normalcy, she never stopped loving me. In fact, she was proud that she had some of my blood circulating in her veins; and the blood was sustaining her life. When the four years deadline given by doctors for Asma'u to survive had almost elapsed, the entire family was worried. It was only I that wasn't moved by her imminent untimely death. My nonchalant attitude towards Asma'u's health condition made every member of the family to dislike me, and most of them, especially older ones stopped engaging in exchange with me. My father ordered that I should stop being fed in the house. In all honesty, I had no work to live on. So the family's decision began to affect me badly. But I was an indefatigable on the escapade; I just kept behaving as if it was all well with me.
Asma'u became worried about me. She was naturally guilty .She knew I was suffering in the house. She felt it was all her fault for she wasn't a bonafide member of the family, and now I was suffering because of her. She was sometimes, given a Keke-Napep fare to go to school, instead she would trek to school scrimped and saved some of the money. When she came back, she would wait for me at the entrance of the house. That was the time I usually returned home. As soon as I entered she would waylay me and offer me o money: "Yaya Farouk please forgive me; I know it's all my fault. Please take this money and buy something to eat; you look hungry and tired." She would say that with her face expressing the heights of unfeigned love, compassion, and empathy. I would look at her disdainfully, and vehemently warned her to stop talking to me, and then walked out of her prancing. She used to stay in the entrance and bitterly wept before going back into the house and continued whatever she was doing; pretending that nothing had happened. When she realized that I was a die-hard Barcelona fan, she started to love and buy anything branded with Barcelona's logo and colours (blue and red); headscarves, handkerchiefs, ribbons "waist beads" and any item for women's external adornments. But this ploy never worked to win my heart for her.
A year later, Asma'u seriously fell ill. She got hospitalized and given a few days to live by the doctors for the second time; because her heart had overworked, and now was failing. But it never stopped to love me. It was obvious that the unrequited love had precipitated the heart failure; because of how the love pestered in the heart. Mercifully, a male's heart was found for her at the end when everyone had given up. And the time for the surgery operation was fixed. While she waited for the surgery, she did whatever she could to lure me to visit her at the hospital, but she never saw me again in her life. And on my part, I grew tired of how my family members were treating me bad because of someone who didn't rightfully belong to the house. I packed my belongings and moved to my parternal grandma's house in the village in protest. When she saw me, she was surprised; because I rarely visited her.
I told her everything that was going on. The next day she took me back home to reconcile me with my family only to hear the news of Asma'u's death on our arrival to our consternation. My younger brother later entered our room where I was crying like a baby and handed over an envelop to me, telling me that it was a message from Asma'u.
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