Tears For My Father - Excerpts from 'I found my voice' - Part 2

“Is it because I do not have a father? …”

Taken aback my classmates gathered around, and were remorseful, they enquired when his death had occurred when I told them it was five years before, they walked away, miffed and berated me for being unable to let go.  Reflecting back, I know this was not simply an unending grief but my anguished cry for help, help needed to navigate the weight of expectations now bestowed upon me by my admission to King’s College.  In those days when my grades were not so good, when I was left behind by my classmates and in the face of my twin sister’s relentless advance my mother would summon the memories of my father and the weight of my history to will me on.   She would state almost ‘prophetically’:

“They are watching us to see whether we will succeed.”

I always wondered about the significance of those words.

The only antidote I found to the vacuum inflicted upon me was a constant retreat into the world of drawing and sketching; I became some sort of artist.  In that world I could re-live life with my father featuring prominently.  I would take some comfort of how I thought the world ought to be.  To me, art was to become the prop and crutch against times of uncertainty.  I became very moody and withdrawn and some interpreted it as my natural inclination.  In Primary Two at a time when my twin’s companionship might have helped soothe the pain of our loss, we were wrenched apart and sent to different classrooms.  I remain puzzled at the reason for separating two grieving twins who had just lost their father.  I guess in those days people just did not understand grief or the close bond that twins had.  I grew up as a lone ranger attending an exclusive primary school, University of Lagos Staff School, always retreating into and preferring my own company.  The loss of our father marked us apart from other classmates, we became to some, an object of curiosity mixed with pity.  They wondered what we had done wrong to have deserved the loss of our father?  It all seemed to me as if we were to blame.

My father was suddenly thrust into my consciousness at a celebrity debate organised by the National Council for Women’s’ Societies (NCWS) at King’s George’s Hall Onikan, Lagos.  I was on the same team with retired Major-General Henry Adefope as his co-debater ranged against Dr. Christopher Kolade and some Queen’s College student.  Major General Adefope, a medical doctor had served in Obasanjo’s regime as a Federal Commissioner for Labour and later for External Affairs while Dr. Kolade was previously the Director-General of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and now the Commercial Director of Cadburys.  After the debate Mrs. Emily Aig-Imoukhuede, one of the organisers of the event approached me and asked me if I was ’Supo’s son, when I confirmed it, in excitement she raised her voice, saying she knew my father very well and continued:

“We always expected him to make a First Class and it was a surprise that he narrowly missed it….”  

To most places I went people had stories or anecdotes to retell about him and it is these that made him come alive to me.  His memories began to fill the vacant space in my mind.