They went and never came back

Mr. Quainoo informed his wife he was travelling to a neighbouring town and promised to be back in a couple of days, his wife and children were so anxious because daddy will return with some food stuffs and candies for them. They waited and waited and waited and waited, but daddy never came.

The morgue at the 37 Military Hospital on Monday July 25, 2011, gracefully received the bodies of a woman, her three year old daughter and a taxi driver who had bid goodbye to their families that they were going to work, market and school respectively only to find themselves in the cold arms of death.

Day in and day out, the media reports of carnage that claim so many lives on our roads. Statistics available at the National Road Safety Commission reveal an unbelievable number of human resources that are lost through road accidents. From January to June this year, more than one thousand lives have been lost throughout the country with over-speeding and overtaking being the main cause. Drivers in a bid to reach their destinations within the shortest possible time, over-take any vehicle they encounter on the road.

Sometimes I am made to believe that we do not need good roads, because most of the accidents that are reported occur on the motor way, high ways, first class or second class roads.  Drivers who ply pot-holed roads drive so carefully as not to destroy their vehicles.  If such care and attention is extended onto the high ways, little will be heard of road accidents. The most sorrowful thing that can ever happen to a person is to bid someone goodbye only to hear some few minutes later that such person has been lost to a motor accident. At that moment you begin to ask yourself questions; why didn’t I restrain him from going?, why didn’t he use another route?, why didn’t he board another vehicle if he knew the vehicle was going to be involved in an accident? And the questions go on and on and on.

Once my church lost one of our most devoted, committed and hilarious elders to a nasty road accident on the Suhum-Apedwa road. Even though I wasn’t part of the delegation, I felt like besieging the pit of hell to confront death. My husband who collected his blood-stained clothes when they were brought to the church premises could not inform me about the demise of the elder because he feared what might happen to me.  In fact, I was cut to the marrow as I kept questioning myself why such a person should exit this world through road accident.  May the soul of Elder George Yaw Attivor formerly of CEPS and the Word Miracle Church International continue to rest peacefully in the bosom of Abraham.

I believe exiting this world shouldn’t be through accident but in a solemn and peaceful manner.