Bad news

Bad news will eventually be spread, my mouth doesn’t have to be the tool.

It was a sunny July afternoon, I was in a vehicle going home from Agip junction, after the usual quarrel with the conductor in negotiations over the fare, I had settled in. Another passenger boarded the bus and met a long lost friend of hers who was on board the vehicle already. They exchanged pleasantries so dearly we onlookers felt like we were part of the family. 😂

They were done with all that and the excitement had died down, but just before the lady who boarded the vehicle first alighted she spoilt it, “Remember Oga Michael, the one that used to farm on that land opposite your own before, him don die o”, these were her exact words.

The woman on the receiving end of this news was devastated, turns out the late man’s wife was a good friend of hers, though they hadn’t communicated in a while, the woman was so destabilized, she kept on lamenting through out the journey muttering words like, “poor woman, how them go do now?”. I can only imagine how the rest of the day would go for this trader, as the merchandise she boarded the vehicle with suggested.

It’s not the first time I’ll notice this exact script play out before my eyes, someone in a sincere attempt to bring someone up to speed on events since the last time they met, drop a bombshell on them and leave them worse than they met them. It’s a position i neither want to be in, nor put another in.

Without passing a sentence on her actions, i could see she didn’t know better. I have been on the receiving end of bad news and it’s not something anyone wants to hear regardless of when or how it’s broken to the person. Nevertheless, wisdom, or at least common sense, demands that we know how, when, and where to share such information and we do so with tact.

Bad news or stories of unpleasant events and occurrences should be carried carefully like, a measure of say, sewage. It’s should be carried with care and if the responsibility of sharing it can’t be passed to another, it should be transmitted with care, concern and utmost empathy.

Bad news flies on its own, it pays it’s own transport fare, it pays it’s own on-air time. All around us, in all forms of media, television, Radio stations, social media, etc, There is almost a hundred times more likelihood to hear the announcement of the death of a person than a birth, the burning down of a building than the erection of one, a defeat than a victory.

Bad news will eventually spread, nevertheless, my mouth will not be that medium, yours shouldn’t be either.