At exactly eight minutes after twelve midnight on Sunday, my phone rang in an irregular call that sounded into my ears as if it was a dream. When I woke up and checked, it was Alieu Ceesay calling. I took it that he was just on his usual joke as the three of us, including Musa Ndow always do.
But the heart immediately asked me to hold… such midnight call may not be as normal as I thought it to be. And then it was exactly that. Pa Modou Faal and Musa Ndow are gone… and gone forever from the face of the earth. What? My hands began to limp and the phone almost fell down after the call.
The death of these two colleagues is by far one of the darkest news I have ever received. They were some of the finest people I have worked with. Truly, death is inevitable.
I joined the former Daily Observer Newspaper in September 2006, just a month after Musa Ndow as freelance journalists and Pa Modou Faal joined us after some years from The Point Newspaper. But we were already a family that shares nothing together but happiness in the most fascinating comradeship. These two men were perfect colleagues with heavy dreams of their advantage, family and the entire Gambia.
The hearts are heavy and the body too limped to carry the encumbrance. I tell you… whoever knows these two gentlemen or once crossed paths with them would understand where I am coming from. May Allah be pleased with them and offer them bountiful resting place in the highest of Jannah. Ameen Allah.
Just starting his own family life, Musa remained optimistic about the future and that of his little children especially the twins, Ousainou and Assan. He loved his family dearly and always ensured that they were first satisfied before him. Mum has recently come to live with him at his Lamin Daranka residence on treatment. But only Allah can tell the future and we submit our total belief in him in his decision and pray for him to extend the lives of their young ones.
Pa Modou Faal… my in-law, as he always addressed me… is just the perfect gentleman who never gave up in offering advice and encouragement to colleagues and relatives. He knew virtually everywhere his relatives are and I got to know… one of his nemeses is breaking family relationship. This is an example of a true Muslim and gentleman. But the time has come for them to return to the final homeland.
Though yet of their families…but only Allah knows, with the inevitable death of these two gentlemen, memories be green, and that it us be fitted, to bear our hearts in grief and our whole families with an auspicious and a dropping eye.
As they journey to the land of no return to meet their creator (Allah the Beneficial and the Merciful), I pray that they are received by the angels with the coldest hands.
My thoughts and prayers remain resolute and are with them both. They will be missed very dearly. May their souls keep blooming like beautiful lights that they took with them as their memories forever remain with us.
