Things they left behind...

ok so...I have been told people visit our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. There have been a number of people that have journeyed through my life; some I may never recall until a necessary time others I am forced to remember each time I see the things they left behind. I remember my dear aunty who was my name sake, and identical to my mum even though they were not twins and my mum was 5 years older than her. She used to visit us frequently in Lagos from Serria Leone and i always looked forward to her visits with glee. From the day she visited to the day she left I would resume my self imposed duty as her bed mate and escort around Lagos. I always thought I had a special claim to her because she was my name sake; I would proudly tell people my name and further educate them on the history of my name. I would announce ‘I am named after both my father and mother’s sisters you see?’ I loved it when she visited on my school holidays because I got the chance to tag along with her to Lagos market. She was a very industrious woman she was also the chief accountant for the bank of Serria Leone but she was a truly entrepreneurial one. In spite of her high calibre career she had all sort of other business ventures. She traded GL the gold plated jewellery when it was the latest trend we would buy them in bulk from Lagos market and then she would take to Serria Leone and sell to others, she would buy pots and pans from Ghana and do the same. She would buy large unheard of quantities with such confidence and then break down in tears at the airport with fear that custom staff would steal her goods before they arrived in Serria Leone. She was a brave woman with heart! I always grew up feeling especially close to her and felt we had a special bond until suddenly one day the news came that she was no longer with us. I have never been one to deal well with what I can’t explain or understand so I typical conditioned myself into denial. In the last 5 years I have dealt with her passing by making myself not acknowledging she was ever here and that our trips to Lagos market and my shadowing her around the house all happened in another lifetime. But it is funny cos I still hear her ringing laughter in my ears as she says in creo ‘lord hav macy dis pickin go make a crase with laughter!’ or I see pictures of her that deny me the deillusion that she was never here. I have come to see that those who really matter in our lives always leave something behind as evidence that they were once here even when they are far away or long gone.

I remember my first boyfriend. The one whom I first kissed and made up my mind at 18 would be my husband and father of my children until my parents decided to yank me off to England to study and hence crush my dreams of us getting into Unilag together and him joining the ROHW club and me being a ROHW guys girlfriend. I remember the night I was scheduled to fly off to England how my older sister winked at me and nodded her head towards the door to say he was outside. As I stepped outside I saw my 1st love holding the cutest white teddy bear, he had sprayed some of his cologne on it so that I could smell him even when we were miles apart. I appreciated the token but weirdly enough the thing I most treasured from my 1st love was a bit of him I had stowed away in my trinket box carefully wrapped in tissue paper. He had extremely long eyelashes which I just loved, one night I playfully plucked a couple off his face and wrapped them safely in tissue paper and kept them in my trinket box. I remember when I first arrived in the UK there were days I could not stand the pain of not being around him; I would carefully open up the trinket box and tissue and look at his eyelash as if to say part of him was still with me. Such innocence was beautiful but if I did that today I would be accused of practising jazz on the guy! Lol!

As I unpack my things in my new home I start to see evidence of people who have recently visited or meant to have visited my life... I see the book I was meant to give a friend of a friend but never got to meet her cos she never turned up to pick up her book. Now I read the title of the book I pray to God she never dropped in to pick it up cos she had grown the brains she needed so that she did not have to read ‘he’s just not into you’. Then I see the scarf and top that I stole off my sister on my last visit home to the UK and it fills me with great satisfaction especially when I see my blue and gold pashmina that I stole back from her on the same visit. Sibling thievery is tradition in my family among the sisters...never mind I’m slimmer than all three of the heifers and my clothes won’t fit them but they still delight in stealing my stuff. I have also come across the pearls I took off my mum and remember how glad she was to give them to me. Nothing makes my mum happier than giving away anything she can to her children. She reminds me of a saying I once heard ‘you can give without loving but you cannot love without giving’ My mum just can’t help giving me her things irrespective of whether they are wanted or not she just can’t help but give. I love you too ma! As I walk around the newly occupied flat I see the only piece of luxury I have acquired since I moved in a 1.5 air-conditioning unit my cousin gave me as a house warming gift. I smile as it will always serve as a reminder of the sacrifice and love my cousin showed me when I had to swiftly move out of my old accommodation and house hunt for a new one. With lots of love, generosity and a big heart he let me live with him and his wife for a whole month while my puppy messed up his perfect home and garden. I hope the shrubs grow back!

I see the mobile phone my sister let me leave the UK with so that she could track me as I made my way to the airport. I see a couple of boxes of chocolates my dad gave me on his last visit and I had promised to the friend that helped me pack out of my old apartment in record time. We lost the chocolates that night and long after I looked for them and could not find them. I finally found them in the top compartment of the blue box that had all my books! I will always be grateful to this friend for the support he gave me that night. Sometimes an act of real kindness covers a multitude of sins. I also see the mutli coloured glasses my child hood friend had given me as a souvenir from her father-in-laws funeral and how I thought at the time that I had no use for tumblers and now how useful they have become. I also see evidence of overnight stays from many friends from slippers to night dresses to tee shirts to address books to ...the lot! There are other things I come across that make me smile and reflect: old employers business cards and id cards, tons of acquaintance business cards, birthday cards from the past year, books and DVDs promised to be returned but still in my possession, gifts and ‘lovey dovey’ Christmas and Valentine cards that never made it to the intended beneficiary etc, etc and the list goes on! These are all things left behind by some of the people who have travelled through my life in the last 2 years in Nigeria. The evidence that we were once here are the things we leave behind. I pray I have loved much and given much to those who have ever mattered to me so that when I am far away or long gone it would be impossible to deny I was ever around.