Lost Property

Some losses scar for life. The pain might be glossed over quickly with a replacement but underneath, the scar eats away at the heart. A new car or job can be conjured up after a loss but that new habit of perpetually watching over one’s shoulders says it all; there is now a fear of a new lightning strike.

Not all losses are the same. There are losses with or without insurance. An insured ship could sink and the owners recoup their money from a begrudging insurance firm. The lives lost at sea are also covered by insurance. The families of the bereaved however only get cash payment though as insurance companies, who claim to insure life, are unable to raise the dead.

Most people no matter their age can tell you everything about what they have lost in life (obvious exceptions being those who have lost their memories). The best jokes are usually about losses and misfortune. That is just how the world goes around. A movie will never win an Oscar without the loss of lives, love or property being written into the script. If loss does not happen then the threat of loss was extremely great setting the stage for the hero who saves the day. A successful life is one that has bits of good fortune occurring in between the losses and the failures.

As Christmas approaches the mind goes to a young Joseph in the Bible losing his trust in his beloved Mary after she tells him a wonderfully mystical story about how she came to lose her period. If he thought that was bad, what was to come was even worse. They both lost this same son aged twelve years old when he was ‘forgotten’ in Jerusalem during a pilgrimage. They had to rush back and endure the looks of the people who they asked about a boy they left behind. Those stern looks that ask what kind of parent forgets their child? They found him three days later.

 They later lost the son to crucifixion at a later day, again for three days.

Some losses need divine intervention to rectify. Maybe all losses need some form of help to endure. I have met many old people who have lamented various losses in their lives and the lamentations of the elderly starts with their lost youth and strength. Next is their spouse and maybe children who have moved away.

People of all ages mourn the loss of a childhood spent in hardship; this one seems to follow people to the grave. Not knowing who the parents were is also a life- long problem for some. Parent’s dying in childhood or ‘disappearing’ means the child grows up wondering what it might have been like. There is nothing human beings have not lost; jobs, looks, height, singing voices and even the ground under their feet (earthquakes happen).

A guy once told me of how he caught his girlfriend with another man in a compromising position and ended the relationship. He soon acquired a new flame but his obsession with knowing where she was at every minute was wrecking the relationship. He had lost the ability to trust in a relationship.

So why all this Losing My Virginity talk like Richard Branson?

Ok, mek I talk true, my I phone 7 loss yesterday and e dey pain mi. No insurance sef.

On the 6^th December 2016 at precisely 12:28 hours I bought my beloved ‘chassis’ I phone 7 and was delirious with the great expectations of gratuitous selfies. It was Black and proud with a birthweight of 32G. Everyone around me knew about the purchase which had increased my family size to two (I- pod as first born).  It didn’t take long for people to start asking when the next child was due (Apple Watch) but I told them I was into family planning and had adopted a Sekonda for the time being.

I lost my beloved phone last night on the train. The London North Western line 21:28 hour’s service from Euston to Birmingham caused the problem. We got to Northampton and they announced that the train was to be split; the front four carriages were going to Birmingham while the last eight were to remain in Northampton. It made sense, because the passengers were few and there was no need to take twelve carriages down when four would have done.

I left the train and soon found out I had picked up the charger but left the phone behind. I rushed back but the doors to the last eight carriages had been shut and the train was about to move on. I rushed back to the front four carriages and that was when the mourning and lamenting started. How could this be? Perhaps I was too relaxed reading the newspapers and listening to my I pod. What if I didn’t come out to London for Tedxeuston? If only I had been more careful. Then I remembered that my car was in a multi-story car park in Birmingham and the car park ticket was in a compartment in my I phone’s protective covering. One by one different painful lashes of information began to knock on the door of my consciousness. No WhatsApp groups, no contacts, and my selfies from Tedxeuston all gone. Then I recalled all the pictures of slides I took in four different conferences.

I began to wonder if one can be called a human being without a phone in one’s possession. It was as if an essential organ such as the liver had been stolen. At New Street Station I collected the telephone number of Network Rail’s Customer Services and walked in the cold to the Car Park feeling despondent. Then I recalled what it was that took me to London in the first place. The 9^th edition ofTedxEuston; themed Dream Weavers. It was an opportunity to get inspired to keep weaving those dreams and ideas into reality. One of the speakers was MKO and Kudirat Abiola’s daughter, Hafsat Abiola-Costello, a human and civil rights campaigner.  She articulated the burden of responsibility on our shoulders to work for a better Nigeria. If I cannot cope with a lost phone is it Nigeria’s problems I will tackle? I had to repackage my spine and remind myself that Naija no dey come last.

It was tedious getting my car out and I had to stand around pressing buzzers and chatting with the car park night staff that were not even on site.

The story had to be re-told at home and the questions followed. Going on I cloud to find the phone yielded nothing. I woke up this morning and rang customer services and there had been no sightings of my phone.

The wake keeping was officially on. I started to tell all that my phone was gone. I got no comfort, just questions to which my answer of ‘No’ attracted strange looks.

‘Insured?’

‘Backed up on I cloud?’

‘Rang to block the phone?’

‘Heard anything positive form the train station?’

The mood threatened to dip but I heard an angel in my ear.

‘Wilson, man up and cheer up. You have used your money’s worth out of that poor phone. People had houses that contained phones burnt to the ground in the Californian fires. Stop mourning and go and type an obituary in memory of your I phone 7 (Legbegbe)’.