DARKEST NIGHTS

 

Photo by Timothée Duran on Unsplash

If a new day starts at midnight, then the day begins with night. Last Saturday was a ridiculously hot and dark night. There was power outage, and my inverter was about to give way as it blinked and cried out from battery depletion. I had no other alternate power generating set. I was irritable. I hate dark nights, and it is worse when the dark nights are also hot. However, anyone who lives in Nigeria like me is no stranger to dark nights, and this was why I got an inverter. But inverter batteries do deplete, and when there has been no power for four whole days, the batteries eventually die. I was cranky that night/morning.

What was it about the dark nights that put me off so much? Could it be the long-running battles I had with sleep paralysis? Back then, we attributed it to demons or witches pressing us while we slept. Or maybe it was because of how my mind would wander to places that I was afraid of when I wasn’t sleeping or reading. Not sure! But I love to see the light at night. I once nearly burnt myself up because I lit a candle to light my night, and somehow the candle fell on the mattress. I woke up just in time to put the fire out and had to stay awake for some hours, in the dark.

Just before dawn that Saturday, as I grumbled about the darkness, a song by Bethel Music, “Goodness of God”, came to mind. As I listened and sang along, I was reminded about the goodness of God, and how funny it was for me to be so upset about the darkness, when it could not compare to the darkest nights I have had. I have had many bright days. God has blessed me with an amazing community of family and friends who have supported my craziest dreams, even when they do not understand them, like when my parents got me my first laptop at a time that it was uncommon for undergraduates to own laptops. When that laptop developed problems after four years, another friend gifted me with a brand-new laptop, twice in a row. In 2019, I had no laptop to work with, and another friend lent me his personal laptop to use until I could save up to buy mine. Yet there have been nights of thick darkness that no amount of electricity could have brightened.

In hindsight, my darkest nights have been a build-up of difficult days that culminated in utter darkness. Like that night in 2008 when I failed to qualify to represent my University at the West African University Games debate. But it was more than the debate: it had been a difficult year up till that point. I was not getting the support I needed as president of my departmental association, I was struggling with my final year Long Essay (project) and my supervisor hung me out to dry, I was not doing well in basketball, and my health was failing. Amid all these, my closest friend in school did not want us to be friends again. “Tell me what I did wrong, so that I can apologise,” I begged her repeatedly. Instead, for the first time in my life, I got the “It's not you; it's me” response. She was becoming friends with someone else, and there was no space for me in that relationship. I could not understand why we could not all be friends, why she had to choose between me and the new friend. She had been like my rock through that difficult season, and halfway through, she abandoned me. So, there I was, failing in my academics, in basketball, in leadership, in health, and in friendship. Losing the debate that day was like a crowning of all the failures! It launched one of my darkest nights.

I was not good for anything anymore or so I thought. The shame and pain seemed unbearable, and I could not sleep, even though I needed the refuge of sleep. I desired a very long sleep, to be in a place where I did not have to worry about the impossible Long Essay, school politics, former friends, and tired body. And there was the usual power outage. I had planned to overdose on a medication that could induce sleep, but God sent me comfort and help through a friend – Opeyemi. She took me to her room that night and reassured me that I was not a failure. She watched me like a hawk too, to ensure that I did not do anything stupid. God raised another friend, Gabriel, who helped me finish well as Madame President. He was also my partner at my last debate as an undergraduate, the Inter-Faculty debate, which we won!

2011 was a rough year: two of my darkest nights happened a month apart. One Sunday evening, in September 2011, I was watching an Ijaw movie with one of my brothers and my sisters, when my brother got tired of the movie and asked to use my laptop. This laptop was a gift from my dear friend and sister, Ada, and it contained my writings, writings that I had nowhere else. I had lost some of my work earlier, when someone formatted my older laptop without my permission. After months of anger, disappointment, and inertia, I had started writing again. This time, I backed up my documents in a flash drive and a memory card, but both got damaged somehow. I did not know about cloud storage then and had plans to get a hard drive that new week, and until I got the hard drive and backed up my files, my laptop was not leaving the house. So, when my brother asked for the laptop, I told him to check the carton in the room. A few seconds after, he came back asking, “Which carton?” I described the carton, and he ran back to check. “It is not there o,” he came back. He was distracting me from the movie.

“Which carton did you even check?” My sister asked him. “It is right there beside the mattress on the floor.” She saw me when I kept it there before we left for church that morning. She went with him to get the laptop. They spent a few minutes in the room before they came back with the same story. No laptop. How manage? I left the Ijaw movie to check for my laptop. It really was not in the carton. It was nowhere in the room. I checked every corner of the house, including the toilets. No laptop. The charger was in the room, but no laptop. Nothing else was missing from the house. No sign of a break-in, but no laptop. Before that moment, I had never heard the kind sounds that came out of my mouth as I realised that the laptop was gone. My siblings tried to comfort me, but I was inconsolable. I howled in deep anguish until sleep overpowered me. The sleep did not last though. It was a very dark night, and I could not sleep. I had poured out my heart in writing, and I did not know if I would ever be able to create those pieces ever again. And if I could not be a writer, I thought, what could I be? We never learned the truth about the laptop.

One month after the laptop disappeared, I suffered an even greater loss. My father died. The night of the “vanished” laptop was the last time we spoke to each other. Our last conversation was of two of us weeping about the missing laptop as he tried to comfort me, even though he faced a delicate surgery the next morning. That surgery did not go well, and after some weeks, he passed on to glory. I had been with him the previous week, and I had planned to go back with books to read to him, and an Mp3 player for him to listen to the Bible in the ICU. I had planned to stay back this time, until he recovered, or until I was desperately needed back home. While I was out shopping for the house and my trip back to Lagos, I called my mother to ask what she needed me to buy for her, but she told me not to bother travelling the next day as I had planned. It was noisy at the market; I did not understand why she was telling me not to travel. When I got home that evening, the bearers of sad news were there. Right then, my world turned upside down. It was as if I was standing on a carpet, and someone pulled it out from behind me. We cried and we sang, then we managed to sleep, but not for long. I woke up disoriented in the thick of the dark night, remembered that my father was no more, and begged God to reverse the death. I spent many nights after that writing to my father and God, hoping for a miracle. One hymn I sang a lot that season was “It Is Well with My Soul” by Horatio Gates Spafford.

Even the darkest night of 2017 had its build-up. My living conditions were frustrating. The landlord constructed a roof that blocked network signals from reaching my room, so I could only use my phone or work with the internet inside the bathroom. Then the bathroom had flooding and sewage issues, caused by structural failures, so I had to do everything I needed internet for outside the house, and during the rainy season, at the office. That’s how I came to be at the office that night, after I had been to one of the best photo exhibitions ever. I had not even finished what I was working on when I packed up to leave the office because it was drizzling, and I did not want to be trapped in a heavy downpour. That’s how I entered One Chance! I was violently robbed and thrown out of a moving vehicle. That night and many nights after, when I tried to sleep the darkness seemed to strangle me like one of the thieves had done. Even though I had friends and family that consoled and encouraged me during the day, I was left alone with my mind at night. I wished I had someone to hold me to sleep, to chase the terrors of the night away, but I was alone.

The loss of a friendship, not a slow decline and gradual growing apart, or a separation from a disagreement, but the abrupt ending with no explanation, is like tooth extraction without anaesthesia. So, when in 2020, a very dear friend cut me off, I was broken, even though I had other loving friends and family members. Each friend is unique; they bring out something in us that nobody else can. There is no replacement for the loss of a friend. None, at all. When you add COVID-19 isolation and delirious fever to the loss of a friendship, you get another dark night. And one of those days, Damoye listened to me as I cried my heart out. No advice. No rebuke. No shame. No judgement. Just a compassionate ear and reassurance that morning would come, and a ray of sunshine into the darkness I was feeling at the time.

No amount of experience with dark nights had prepared me to deal with the anguish of those nights. Sleep is a place of escape, of solace, yet I would often wake up again, into the reality of my pain, and it would still be dark. Each time I must keep torturous vigil through dark nights, it is a different painful experience all over again, but dawn always comes, and with it, healing light. Yet, I still carry with me the shadows of darkness, the heaviness, and scars from the battles in the darkness.

The nature of dark nights of the heart and soul is remarkable. Even in the darkest of nights, there are stars, and no matter how thick the darkness of the night is, day breaks eventually. But there is no telling when night will fall again. (Also, it can be a very dark night for one person while it is raining sunshine for the people around them.)

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I usually say that people are my clothes, and that’s because it is true. I don’t know how I would have survived my darkest nights without the blessing of great people in my life, and without psalms, hymns, and beautiful songs. I am thankful for the hope that the Bible offers too, that one day, all wrong will be made right. Even the shadows of darkness will go away, and I will know fully as I am known. There will be no more night, and we will not need the light of electricity, or a lamp, or the sun, for the Lord God will give us light (Revelation 22: 5). I am also very thankful for the songs in the night that remind me of hope, that God is good, all the time. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the LORD is with me (Psalm 23: 4).

On Tuesday, before dawn, my inverter cried again. Instead of grumbling, I prayed to God for mercy and waited for dawn. But the morning came with darkness. I got the news that while I lay my tired body to sleep, my friend’s body lay cold in death. My friend had been called to glory, to eternal light, but his loved ones on this side of eternity will suffer some dark nights. I write in present, and we now talk about my friend in past tense.

The first time I met this friend was at my father’s funeral. He travelled from Lagos to my Izon village, to mourn with us. When I moved to Lagos weeks later, I sought him out. With time, we grew in fellowship and friendship. He was an exceedingly kind, humble, generous, and considerate person. It was he who lent me his only laptop in 2019 because he said that I needed it more than he did. He is one of the few people in my life who have given me money without my asking. He gave me birthday gifts too, never missing anyone since 2017. He was very perceptive and could sense when his loved ones were experiencing financial hardship, and he would deny himself and help without prompting. When his brother died and his nephews needed a father, he and his wife opened their home and lives to them, and he became their father in every way humanly possible. And when his sister-in-law died and her children needed parents, again, he and his wife opened their home. And I have not even scratched the surface of the extent of his sacrificial love and life.

He was a remarkably high achiever too. He defied the odds of his circumstances and worked extremely hard to attain career and material success. He sought continuous learning and growth too because he always wanted to be better than his best.

My brother my friend, Philip Monday Omoarelegie! These past few days have been very dark ones for me. When I was falling apart last year, you encouraged me to hold on. Amidst your busy life, whenever I disappeared as I sometimes do, you would seek me out, and you would understand when I told you that I was tired. I loved working with you. I loved it when you needed my help, because you were always helping, and it was a gift to help you too. I want to believe that this is all a bad dream, and I will wake up and say, “Thank God it was only a dream,” and I will tell our brethren to pray against death. But I am not a stranger to death, so I know that until my journey on this side is over, I will only see you in pictures, memories, and dreams. All the losses I have suffered to date have not prepared me for the news of your passing. I am broken, and not for myself alone, but for your wife and children too, for the many people whose lives you made easier, whose lives have forever changed because you have been taken from us. 

Yet, I am thankful to God for the life you lived. I thank God that I was a small part of your life. I thank God for the example that you were. I thank God that even now, while your body sleeps the final sleep, you are alive in Jesus Christ. I love you, my friend and brother Phillip Omoarelegie. I cannot even believe I am writing this about you. I love you, my brother. It does not make sense to me that it is people like you whose years are fewer on this side of eternity. I will miss you greatly. Yet I trust God’s sovereignty, even on dark days like these. I trust your Maker and your Lover, the One who abides with us even in life and in death. And I pray for God to give me the grace and means to do right by your family.

Dear reader, the song on repeat on that dark Tuesday for me was “God” by Donald Lawrence. God knows our beginning and end. God orchestrates our life’s journey. God alone is sovereign. I will forever give God praise, honour, and magnify His name, because the God of the past, the present and who is to come, is our God! The God of the mornings is the God of the darkest nights too. May God lead us through the nights. May it please God for us to be part of that new world of constant light.

What are some of the songs you sing in your darkest nights? Please share with me.