Dear Kulsum✅

23.

KULSUM'S POV.

I've been through so much in life that I thought nothing will surprise me anymore.

I was wrong. So wrong.

Because to be honest, I didn't expect the news I just got.

How could I not have thought of this before, I mean it was really obvious but I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't notice.

Laura passed away today morning.

Yes. The same Laura I met in the rehab.

I should've known that the way she was acting yesterday was off, really off. I mean I did notice that she was being more cheerful than she ever was, and I noticed something off about her appearance but I didn't give much thought to it.

Apparently, she knew that her time will soon be over that was why she told me everything I asked her.

Well, not everything. She didn't tell me how she found my son or where I can find him. I regret not asking her that but I'm not that heartless to say that I didn't feel some kind of sadness when I heard the news of her demise.

I pulled the beanie on my head to cover the strands of hair that escaped as I watched Laura's mother wail over her dead daughter's body. She was transferred to this hospital last night from Lagos but she passed away this morning. I didn't even know that she's in the same hospital I am because I would've checked up on her. She's the only person I can say I grow a little bit close to.

I mean in the rehab center talking to someone only twice signifies that you are acquaintances because most go through their session without interacting with anyone, ever. And to me, she's the one person I spoke to twice. I don't know if you can count Hayra in the equation because she and I only talked once and even that ended in she walking away from me for reason only known to her.

Bottom line is, I guess Laura was right when she told me that no matter all obstacles, family is for life.

When she and I first met, after her husband committed suicide, she was all alone. Her family abandoned her because they didn't agree with the kind of man she married, that was another thing that made her so depressed she thought of abortion and suicide. At least I talked he rout of it.

I don't know what happened afterwards, but she reunited with her family somehow. Because as I watched her mother cry, her three-year-old daughter she left behind is in the arms of her father sobbing. The girl probably hardly knew her mother since Laura spent the longest time in rehab but anyone could tell that the little girl understood that she lost someone that meant a lot in her life. She silently sobbed in her grandfather's arms. He too wiped his tears every now and then.

I tear my gaze away from the family and rested it on Laura's lifeless, pale body. I couldn't exactly state how I felt knowing that will be me in a couple of days.

I mean...how will you feel knowing that you will die in a couple of days?

I can't tell but I do know that you won't be jumping up and down out of excitement.

I wanted and tried to end my life times without number but now that I'm actually going to die, I feel something I've felt all those other times before.

Fear.

My view on life and thoughts on wasting my life away changed because of Laura.

I guess if her life and death taught me anything is that life is too precious for it to be wasted away.

Laura taught me that.

I wiped the tears that streamed down my face. I glanced at her lifeless body one last time, before I turned and walked away.