A Letter To My Dear Pelumi Whose Death I Discovered Through A WhatsApp Update.

Dear Pelumi,

I have been sitting with this heaviness for days , trying to find the right place inside myself to hold a truth that still feels foreign. Maybe writing to you is the only way I can begin to understand it.

We met in 2019 during my NYSC in Osogbo, Osun State. It still feels like yesterday. Your energy was impossible to ignore. You walked into the CDS hall with that bright, carefree confidence that made everyone want to know you.

You were lively in the way only genuinely happy people can be and somehow you made the rest of us lighter too.

Becoming friends with you wasn’t something that required effort. It just happened. It was natural. Easy. It was like you carried your own atmosphere and everyone around you got to breathe better.

After service we carried our friendship into the world outside uniform. We talked a lot about life and the big dreams we were piecing together one day at a time.

Talking to you became a routine I looked forward to. Even when life got loud we always found our way back to those conversations that steadied us. The last time we spoke was in September. I had no idea that would be the last time I would hear your voice.

Nothing prepared me for finding out you were gone last week through a WhatsApp update. It felt unreal like the world had just folded in on itself.

I kept staring at your picture hoping it was a mistake, hoping someone would correct the story and give me back the version where you were still here.

I have been struggling to accept this. Loss has a way of rearranging a person quietly and violently at the same time. Some days I feel numb. Some days I feel overwhelmed. Some days it still feels like you will call.

Writing this is my way of saying thank you. Thank you for the joy you carried so effortlessly, for the warmth you spread without thinking about it, for the kind of friendship that stays even when the person is gone.

You were truly a light. A rare one.

I have been thinking a lot about friendship and how we often imagine we have more time than we actually do. Losing you has made me ask myself what it means to hold people closely while we still can.

To everyone reading this how do you deal with loss? How do you carry the memory of someone who mattered deeply without feeling like you are losing pieces of yourself? How do you honour a friendship that ended too soon?

Pelumi I don’t know if letters travel beyond this world but if they do I hope this one reaches you.

I hope you know how loved you were and how deeply you will be missed.