🕊️ E Bad Pass… I’ll See You for Al-Jannah

For the ones who left too soon. And the dreams that never made it past the door.

Last night, I slept on watching the covers of the Al-Jannah open verse challenge. The song had been echoing in the corners of my head all week, but last night it hit differently.

It wasn’t the beat. It wasn’t even the lyrics at first.
It was the ache it carried. Quiet. Familiar. Lingering.
It reminded me of all the people I’ve lost, the milestones they should have witnessed, the dreams we once planned, and the growing list of “what could’ve been.”

“I wish I can fly
I wish I can take off
I wish I can touch the sky…”

Funny how songs can crack you open in places you thought you had sealed shut.
Because grief is like that. It doesn’t arrive loudly. It waits.
Sometimes for years. Until a lyric, or a scent, or a memory knocks something loose.

There’s been so much loss.
People I never imagined would leave.
Moments I thought were guaranteed.
Plans that were once full of life, now frozen in messages that will never get a reply.

It started in 2014.
On my birthday.
That was the year when someone who felt like a second father didn’t make it home.

Six years passed. In 2020. The year my grandparents left, one after the other, like the roots of a tree quietly lifting out of the ground.

I wasn’t home when one passed, and the distance made it harder. Harder to cry. Harder to feel. But it hit nonetheless.

Another was just as the COVID-19 lockdown was easing.
The world was reawakening, but part of mine was shutting down.
There was something uniquely painful about all this, like a family tree losing all its roots at once.

And not so long ago, my brother (Saheed), in every sense of the word. One whose dreams ran parallel to mine. Gone before we could even begin.

A dear friend (Musa Balqis), too. I met her at Unilorin, a junior, but mostly on my level. Full of vision. Fire. Potential. One moment here. The next, a silence I still don’t know how to fill.

They all left. But not without leaving something behind.
An echo. A reminder. A weight I carry not with bitterness, but with reverence.

“I wish I can talk to you
One more time, my friend…”

But it hasn’t just been people. There are the things I’ve lost that don’t wear a face.
Opportunities that slipped past me quietly, some because life got in the way, others because I didn’t believe enough in myself to chase them. Scholarships. Fellowships. Conversations that should’ve been had. Emails I never sent.

You grow up thinking the big moments will arrive with fireworks.
But sometimes they just disappear while you're busy overthinking.

This is what the song “Al-Jannah” reminds me of.
Not just what’s gone. But what never got the chance to become.

“But e bad pass
I’ll see you for Al-Jannah…”

That line sits with me deeply.
Because for every person that left early, for every dream that never woke up, there’s hope. That maybe, somewhere beyond this chaos, there’s a reunion. Restoration. Reckoning.

However, while I don’t have all the answers,
I still sit with questions I’m not sure how to ask out loud.

But I know that mourning doesn’t always look like tears.
Sometimes, it’s waking up and trying again.
Sometimes, it’s sharing the stories that hurt to remember.
Sometimes, it’s writing this.
For you. For me. For all the versions of us we’ve had to say goodbye to.

If you’ve lost someone or something. A friend, a parent, a dream, a future version of yourself. This is just a small reminder: you’re not alone.

Grieve if you must. Rest if you need.
But don’t forget to keep living.
Not just for you, but for the ones who no longer can.

We’ll all get there.
Someday. Somehow.

With love, memory, and hope,
Mustapha