Douglas: The Tribute I Never Wrote

I can’t remember the first time I saw you, nor the last.

My earliest recollection of a near meeting was in Zaria, when we went to your house. It was my first visit. All the kids were out.

The next time the topic of your family came up, I was informed that they would be relocating to Kaduna because your dad had been appointed as a commissioner.

What followed was many years of childhood games. You introduced me to X-Men, and eventually the very first Harry Potter movie.

I watched you sketch Marvel characters, and you chased me round when it was time to play tag. Your automotive sketches were so good I was sure you would work for one of the German car makers.

Eventually it was time to proceed for higher education. You should have gone before me, but you choose a highly competitive institution and did not get accepted on the first try. I chose a different institution and got accepted.

The next two years were frustrating for you because you had to keep trying to get accepted.

When you eventually got accepted, the realities of the educational system set in. What should have been a simple registration process turned into a gruesome exercise that caused you to break down.

While I had been informed that you suffered from sickle cell anemia, I don’t recall ever seeing you experience a crisis.

It was a time when we had to use phone booths to call home. There were only three in the vicinity of the school. We had to queue up for long hours to make calls. Sometimes lectures did not permit this.

I hadn’t called home for a while. I still remember the phone booth in front of the store where I went to make this call. When I eventually called, Doris picked the call. I don’t know what it was about that call, but I knew something was wrong before she mentioned it. There was no way of contacting me under the circumstances. You had been buried the previous day.

I don’t recall the interval between that conversation and my arrival in Kaduna. I got to your house, but it wasn’t the same. I tried observing the usual routines, but you were absent. Night fell, and mom brought me your photo. I went to bed.

Sleep did not help me find closure. By morning I had more questions than answers.

It’s been 17 years of wondering how different things might have been. There hasn’t been closure, and I guess there won’t be any. Instead, I have learnt to adapt.

I wouldn’t have written this tribute, but for the sudden death of another cousin that left me feeling the same way I felt when I got the news of your passage.

I hope to have the strength to write her own tribute in a week or two.

Rest on my brother, even as you live on in my heart, and in eternity.