Not loving my neighbor enough may not have cost him his life but it cost me my peace of mind

“I’m a typical born and bred city girl so I’ve always believed in minding my business. It’s not the best trait, I know, but that’s how I am and I like it that way.

Recently, though, I learnt differently when minding my business played a role in my neighbor’s life. Early one morning, as I dressed up to go out, I heard shouts coming from our next door neighbors who lived in a wooden makeshift building on the empty piece of land beside us. As usual, I wanted to ignore the sounds but something inside told me to act out of character and check on them – so I went over.

The man was sitting still on a small stool while his son and a friend held him up. His pupils were dilated and he didn’t appear to be breathing. Sweat trickled down his body as they held his head back, trying to force some water into him. The story was that he was likely reacting to a large dose of a traditional medicinal mixture he’d taken early that morning. After spending a few minutes there, during which many other people came to the scene, I went back to my place to finish dressing up for my appointment.

Few minutes later, I drove out with my husband to meet the young guys still struggling with the man. My husband advised them to take him to the hospital and they said they were waiting on a friend to come pick them up. We left but on the way, we talked about it – wondering if we should have left our appointment and taken him to the hospital ourselves.

When we got home, we stopped to ask after the sick man and were told that he had died. I literally felt my heart drop from my chest to my feet. I couldn’t believe it. I looked over to my husband and saw he was equally disturbed by the news.

For days, neither of us talked about it until one night, I couldn’t help myself. I was losing sleep over it so I mentioned it to my husband and he sighed. He said he’d not been sleeping too well either since that night as he felt we could have done more; that maybe if we’d taken him to the hospital immediately, he might have survived. We talked to the man’s family after that and they said the hospital confirmed him dead on arrival – that he was dead as at the time they were holding him up – while we were still standing there. The traditional medicine he’d taken was a very strong mixture and he’d been advised to take it on a very full stomach and with water. The man, who loved alcohol, had taken a lot of it because of the alcoholic content and on an empty stomach. Less than an hour after he took it, he started having seizures.

Okay, so maybe going about my business didn’t kill him but it killed my peace of mind to know that I might have done more – if not to save his life but to show love of neighbor.”