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Dark clouds today. Few years ago I wrote somewhere that the beautiful thing about life is that we do not know when it’ll end. Today I had reason to think back at those words and wonder what I was high on when I thought those thoughts. I wondered if I should regret writing them, if they’re really true, or if they’re just another philosophy that’s foolishness before God. Faith has a way of crawling into matters like this. Always. Almost always. Today’s Friday, and I’m thinking of Tuesday Godwin Legible, a childhood buddy, because today mum called me on the phone and said: “Tuesday…he died earlier this morning”. Let me tell you a not-so-detailed story:
The early years of my life are divided into a variety of different phases. The first were the years of believing, years I spent being raised in laughter and love by my grandparents and aunts. The second were the years of belonging, which I spent having to live with my parents after grandma passed. The third were the years of becoming, years from 2000 when two things happened: I became very fluent in English, more out of frustration than anything else because I got tired of being taunted by my mum when she’d say- “If you see where Divine speaks English…” and I got to love and hate Divine at the same time, but that’s a different story; we also moved into our family house, never mind that the building was still largely incomplete- but that move meant I needed to connect with a whole new category of peers.
It was in this house I got used to playmates, gifts of little demons called children (demons because we were all stubborn and stupid), which I didnt have in our previous environment where I was largely confined to being an introvert even though I wasn’t. But when you’re like me, an only child, whose mum had to pray for everyday because she feared he might get in some trouble, you don’t have a choice. Anyways, Tuesday was a peer and he lived a street after mine. I could see his house from mine and many weekend evenings we’d gather to play football in front of the house. Tuesday was energetic. And strong. He was nothing like me except in size by virtue of our similarity in age. I grew up privileged and full of dreams. When I learned to read, Tuesday still struggled to read basic words. He didn’t have the opportunities I was exposed to; My parents had my time. Again, I was privileged. But what he lacked in what was privilege to me, he made up for in grit.
Few years ago I returned from Lagos after I got robbed into depression and I learned that Tuesday had started building his house. I was happy for him. When I got married Tuesday wished me well. “Now you’re a man, he said.” He was already married and he had about three kids with a young and beautiful wife. I learned he worked as a chainsaw operator, a heavy duty task that people like me would faint if we attempted it for the first time. But Tuesday did. For a living.
When I was trying to get back to business working as a photographer in 2020, Tuesday sent his wife and kids to come make portraits in my studio. He didn’t join in the shoot because he was out hustling for his daily 2k. I respected his firmness of heart and spirit. But I think my respect for him really bloomed when his father passed away in an accident. I respected the way he coordinated things and delivered in his responsibility as a first son, funding the funeral arrangements while minding the family. Sure I was in no position to fund a funeral, but I did wonder whether I’d be able to behave myself if I were in the same shoes.
And a few months after, his mum followed. Dead. And again Tuesday played his part as a man, a first son, one who wasn’t quite willing to let life’s punches get to him. As I observed, I realized it was true by virtue of his life, the solemn words of someone I once knew who said, “it’s hard to break anyone who refuse to be broken.” Tuesday refused to be broken. He fought.
But today life won, or death did, or so it seems. I lost a childhood buddy and I couldn’t cry. I was angry. Am. I am angry. I was angry because again my mother carried the news. I was angry about how she started out on a nice note asking if I was busy or if she could tell me something. I was angry because I thought she would ask me if Eureka has eaten, if Trevor is playing actively, and if I was getting leads in my business. I was angry because I hoped she had good news to tell me. I was angry because the broken news threw me back to 2015, when she called and said to me that my friend, Omondan Ehis Penworthy, had died and he was poisoned. I was on a photoshoot looking to earn N15,000 from shooting corporate passports for staff of Hall 7 Projects. And my camera almost fell off my hands. I cried like a child, tired of convincing myself that I was a grown man. And that day I was mad at the entire world and mad at myself, because a few weeks earlier Penworthy and I had a dispute. I can’t even remember what got us into the mess, but we were both stupid enough to challenge ourselves to a social distancing match to see who would call first. I’ve made fucked up decisions the type no one can unfuck. And so Penny got poisoned and I wasn’t even aware until he died. And I wondered if he thought of me while dying. And what he thought about.
And so today, like the day Penny died, I was working, editing images I shot a few weeks ago for two corporate clients. And then my mum said, “Tuesday…went to work…” that’s when my mind went far away. I know she said thing about what possibly transpired in the forest but I didn’t ask the details. Tuesday went to work. And now he’s not coming back.
Lemme Hexplain! 