Oladipo: A Few Hours Ago, We Spoke — Now, I Write your Epitaph, By Olusola Fabiyi

Some deaths leave you speechless. And there are deaths that make you question the meaning of time.

Editor Dotun Oladipo’s death is one of them.

A few hours ago, we chatted. We exchanged words as colleagues and friends do, unaware that it would be our last conversation. There was nothing in that conversation to suggest that death was waiting around the corner. Nothing to tell me that, before the day ended, I would be struggling to find words to describe the pain of losing you.

Now, you are gone.

Editor Dotun, you were more than an editor. You were a journalist of conviction, a newsroom intellectual and a man who understood the power and responsibility of the written word. You belonged to that generation of journalists who did not merely report the news; they interrogated it, shaped it and gave it meaning.

Your newsroom presence was unmistakable. Your voice carried authority, but it was also the voice of a colleague who understood the pressures, frustrations and triumphs that define journalism.

And perhaps that is why your death hurts so deeply.

How does one reconcile a conversation held only hours ago with the finality of death? How does one move from “See you” to “Rest in peace” in the space of a few hours?

Life can be brutally cruel.

You left without giving those of us who knew you the opportunity to say goodbye. You left while conversations were still unfinished, while plans remained, while tomorrow still seemed certain.

But if a journalist’s life is measured by the stories he leaves behind, then yours will not end with your passing.

You will live in the stories you edited, the journalists you influenced, the readers you informed and the profession you served. You will live in the memories of those who shared newsroom floors with you and in the countless conversations in which your experience, wit and professional judgment made a difference.

Tonight, I keep returning to the fact that we spoke only a few hours before your death.

Perhaps that is the hardest part.

I did not know I was saying goodbye.

None of us ever really does.

So, farewell, Editor Dotun Oladipo.

The newsroom has lost a voice. Journalism has lost one of its own. And those of us who spoke with you today have lost something even more personal: the comforting belief that there would always be another conversation.

There will not be.

May God receive your soul, comfort your family, and grant them the strength to bear this immeasurable loss.

A few hours ago, we spoke.

Tonight, I mourn you.

Tomorrow, I will remember you.

And for as long as I remain in this profession, I will remember that I once had the privilege of calling you a colleague and a friend.

Goodnight, Editor Dotun.

Goodnight, colleague.

Goodnight, friend.

Rest well, oga mi.