The sudden demise of Asempa FM’s Kwadwo Asare Baffuor Acheampong known as KABA was unexpected but expected.
It isn’t because anybody knew he would die that soon, but because we should expect every death to be irrationally unexpected. And KABA’s death is one of those absurd deaths that form part of our experience here on earth.
It’s usually normal to have many questions run through your mind when you lose a loved one. But it isn’t when their departure was summarily. Perhaps, that’s why death is whispered but never told.
It’s normally abnormal or abnormally normal.
But KABA’s may not survive any classification because he had been on the phone with a colleague, promising a new approach to his show, only to be declared dead minutes later.
He would be missed but his death will be hissed every time his name is mentioned.
His death has shattered dreams, opened ears, loosened hearts, softened eyes and illuminated the path that our lives interlink with others. Tears have broken boundaries; thoughts winged into the ether and confessions drawn, with no microphone.
All these have been achieved with one man’s death.
National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia would never have admitted in the open to divulging secrets on the ‘Ekosii Sen’ show, but he did.
“KABA always pushed me to reveal details I would otherwise not have done in interviews…he always pushed us to reveal serious details,” the former lawmaker said of the Asempa FM political show host.
But he was a generalist who passed muster.
To Joy News’ Faustine Naa Akwa, it was KABA’s act of generosity that warmed her heart.
“I don’t think that KABA offered to pay the money because he had more than enough. He paid because that was who he was; selfless, kind and generous,” she wrote.
The late presenter was uber-generous to family, friends and strangers alike. And take it or leave it, every action we take or decline to take affects other people and other people’s actions affect us.
I think the only reasonable response to the connected nature of our lives is for us to embrace it. Let’s embrace our oneness by celebrating our differences. Seventeenth-century writer John Donne better expressed this in his seminal work ‘No Man is an Island.’
In Meditation XVII, he wrote that “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.”
When we break tears for a departed friend, brother, sister, child or parents, know that we’re crying over our own death, because their deaths toll ours.
KABA’s death is a stark reminder of that great design that someday we will all end up in that great vault, awaiting the day when the justified souls will be enlisted in the eternal army.
But while I’m here, whatever I ended up being good at, I will strive to be worthy of the second chance given.
May KABA’s soul rest in peace!
