Dear Dad,
My earliest memories of us are of me perched on my small chair looking up to you whilst you swotted into the early hours of the night, huge coffee mugs making their procession down your throat with the regularity of clockwork. It must have been back in ‘85, as in my memories I see Gracie . there too, right in the middle of your PhD years back in Benin.
Those early years were ones of camaraderie and friendship, me the Luke Skywalker to your Obi Wan Kenobi. Those were happy days - wolfing down fried dodo straight off the pan, evening strolls to airport road for suya and loads of travel.
The more enduring memories of the latter years are more spartan and austere - more father rather than friend. Extreme spankings with implements ranging from used car fan belts, special kobokos and the infamous pick pin.
The change - and what might have caused it - is something I have pondered for very many years. Might it have been losing Gracie, or the pressures the Babaginda and Abacha years put on your meagre earnings as an academic? We might have just grown apart, my natural, quiet stubbornness not helping my cause.
You were unstinting in your commitment to providing and caring materially and spiritually though, ensuring that I delivered on my early academic promise. Many years, two degrees and ten years of working later, the obvious conclusion is the training you delivered worked.
These are difficult words to write, given the sum total of our physical conversations this year stand at just over ten minutes over seven attempts. I guess if I had to wrap this up it would be to say thanks for the hard lessons. If we had the chance to do us over again, I can only hope we make a better meal of connecting emotionally..
Yours,
AJ