A traumatized experience

Have you ever come across death, like you were not the main target but you saw it happens, years back when I was still handling my mom store, at the compound that she rented her store, something happen one night and it causes trauma for us (I and my sister).

I can't remember the exact date but I know it was like about four years ago when the landlord brother was shot in our present, he and his wife were newly wedded couples and he works at a hotel, everyone knows him for being calm and minding his business, unlike his elder brother he has fewer friends and sometimes he doesn't even have visitors because he will tell them he's not around, you don't see him unless he wants to be seen, he goes to work and relax at home, his wife got pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl, the whole family was happy and he did a naming ceremony.

He loved the baby a lot and take the baby for a stroll always while calling her America baby, everyone started calling him papa America, and the wife mama America.

One fateful night, he had a misunderstanding with his wife inside the house and he just walk outside to take some fresh air, he told me to give him a chair to seat which I did, he place the chair in front of a car in our shop and backed the other side, I was lying on the car, my sister was seating close to him but on a short pillar, mom was inside her shop, he fell asleep on the chair, someone just walked to me in the car and asked of him, so I pointed that he's the one seating here, the next thing I heard was a loud sound in my head.

First I thought it was a banger (firework) then I saw blood dripping from his head, I screened and ran, my sister was just lost and she just couldn't move, Mom quick jumped and dive my sister like a goal keeper, the person that didn’t took off and I was calling for help, a lot of was running through my mind, I haven’t hear a gunshot so close to be before, I was scared, I couldn’t sleep that night, my sister own was even worst cause she was seating very close to her, she didn’t eat for days because she kept on thinking about the event, i on the other hand has to be strong not to break down cause I’m a man, I kept on trying things to forget about the experience because sometimes I just seat and cry like is my fault, maybe if I hadn’t show the man where he is, he would have still been alive, but what if the man was to give him thousands of dollars and I said he’s not here, I would have been the one to be blamed. 

After his death people started asking questions like what could cause his death, caused they know he's a gentleman and he doesn't look for trouble around, they started saying different things like maybe he saw something at the hotel and they traced him home to murder him or maybe the people that killed him were cultists that came for revenge, cause his immediate younger brother was a cultist and he did a lot of bad things (that's what I heard) so they save up morning and flew him to Europe cause people were coming for him, they had to keep him safe cause he's a family, maybe the people looked for him and later realized that they flew him to Europe so they killed his brother instead as revenge, blood for blood.

The worst part about his death is that after he was shot at his head in his sleep, he didn't die there, his elder brother quickly borrowed a neighbor car and drove him to a hospital, the hospital rejected him cause is a gunshot and they asked for a police report before they can attend to him, he drove him to about 3 hospitals, the same thing, before they could get a police report, he gave up his ghost. So painful and the whole family cried even neighbors too, I don’t know why hospitals still have this rule of seeing a police report before attending to someone with gunshot wounds, cause they attend to the person first and handcuff him or her to bed then call the police to know what happens, waiting for a police report takes time and someone in a situation like that don't have much time. I hope they change this rule soon.

The reason I remember this traumatizing event was because of something that happen in one of the states in my country, a bullion van was hijacked by armed robbers in the middle of the road and gunshots were flying around, two policemen were shot dead at the spot while the robbers made away with the money in the van, motorists ran away from their cars for protection, a man was shot inside his car and there was this woman that was breathing heavily she could have had a heart attack, people began to calm her down. That made to remember what happened years back.

What's your traumatizing experience?

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11-02-2022