Tiny, fair bulgy eyed me grew to know her as a clown. I was only a year plus
while she was a way older omitted teeth monster. Mummy would serve us jollof
rice and plantain (my favourite), she helps dice the plantain and does justice to the
rice leaving me with the grains of remnant. Only for mummy to wonder why my
weight was always under question at the pediatrics’ yet it appears like I devour my
meals so well. It had been like that since I was a baby. Saeedah Olamide wasn’t
just an underweight baby neither wasn’t I well fed. All fingers point at Taye who
had long been doing justice to my food since I was less than a year old (and you
know what? I loved it that way). Ask how she does that, it started from how we
partially share the cereal mummy leaves in my feeding bottle. Taye downs the
bulk viscous content of my feeding bottle, leaves me with few drops to suckle
down.
(At all, at all make he no be like say her sister no see anything chop) and
that continued till I grew more pairs of teeth enough to chew the fish she has first
processed with her sword sharp teeth and squeezed out all the sweetening fluid.
Best biscuit bite was from that which her vampire bite leaves for me. I loved fanta
most when she first gurgles it and leaks the rest in my tiny hole mouth. We would
both stick out our orange stained tongue *yaaaay*. I don’t eat my one slice of yam
if not diced by my pro-machinery Taye. Tinny as I was, she would lift me to climb
the dinning table to lick from the honey jar mummy has tagged “Touch not”.
Now
at 20+ I tell you that I shun protocols, ignore procedures and formalities, stride
over the barricades that’s because Taye groomed me that way by opening my tinny
hole mouth to the running tap at the backyard when mummy’s boiled water is left
just there. Mummy’s chinchin is halved from the fryer before served. My sleeping
kung-fu skills and bird chirping snores were best tried out on her top bunk sleeping
space. She survives my turns and kicks over the night or better still she lands her
timber laps on me, I dare not turn an inch. What if I told you that lasted till my teen
ages when she and her duo Kehinde would sandwich me between their forces of
laps. Y’all been seeing why am skinny aii?
Hurray! It’s the birthday party of our neighbors, she made me love all the
red dresses while I adored her on pink , Kenny was the queen on purple. Picture
perfect, camera ready we smile bright like twinkling stars while we remold the
icing letters on the birthday cakes with our fingers going the lips way. Before the
cake is served, we have sure had our quick tasting from licking the icing (awa
baddo!) Kenny doesn’t have half the time for all those bullshit. She stands face stern for the camera and that’s why till today she doesn’t have a real picture smile.
Taye was my gangstar, fighter, warrior, jaguar, beast and donkey. She was my
every tough thing I could ever think of. My donkey carries me to and from school,
pockets one slice out of my two slices of my buttered bread, leaves my lunch pack
all smeared with butter, I don’t eat the one left till closing time. Her mid finger
knock on the head reminds me never to think of untying my shoe lace that she tied
tightly there like a militant’s (who born me). Since I’ve long learnt from master
Taye how to creep between walls and beneath doors, I will find my way either by
tumbling down the stairs till I am in their primary 5 class from my own pre-nursery
group class, she will roll my koroba hair with different colors of her colored pen
covers (green, red, blue, black) all pocketed ;-I wouldn’t say stolen from mummy’s
desk (thiefing pens is an hereditary something). From lunch time when I creep
out from my class to hers marks my own closing time. Yes! We attended all
the elementary science classes together, carries me on her timber laps to draw a
caricature of her omitted teeth in her notebooks.
Infancy to childhood in the hands of my twins sisters was nothing short of
insensible, unforgettable, impacting fun, lessons and guidelines of life till 20+
now that I write. Our fun ride with our mummy began its pot-hole breakdown
experience from the 6th
February 1996 when our parents had to go their separate
ways, not forgetting how Taye would shield my eyes from watching daddy and
mummy’s turbulent argument. She owned all the keys to my sensitive nerves. She
hypnotizes me with fairy stories, and funny dances till I drift off to sleep and the
boiling waters cool down. Like our airplane was hijacked from our pilot-mummy,
it was daddy’s hard time flight 007, you don’t wanna know badly tense and
strenuous it was for us as growing children without our mummy.
To the glory of
God and the shame of the devil, solidly here I stand writing to you as a conqueror
but if not with the help of my guardian angel and flight hostesses Taiwo and
Kehinde Onilewura. I wont take you through the tussle of our challenging times of
parental separation, I can only speak thankfully of the thug love and support of my
sisters else I would have died sickly like a withered plant. Talk of our abysmally
lacking period, when we had nothing but our weary selves,It was always Taye’s
master mind and Kehinde’s skillful technique to find our way around. This goes
the farthest extreme of Taye and Kehinde’s petty thrift and savings from their coins
to buy me toys, hair accessories etc. They practically have to starve to save up for
my shoes and dress. Taye remained physically strong even in the face of striking
illness to shoulder all our tasky chores. Fearless, shyless, bold Taye from my clear
memories once hawked mango, coconut cookies and all sort of season fruits that I could buy balloons and disco light during festive. She was our breakthrough
warrior while we trio took on the quest to find our mummy..........Waking up every
new day by her wakie wakie tickle gives me a huge crunch of hope that I would
survive my frailty.
Regardless of the time, occasion and school activities while I was in the high
fenced lawn of boarding school, Taye would hell yes annul all the school protocol
to see me either fiercely or pleadingly (whichever comes handy). Her visit was
the notorious sort which all my friends looked out for. She would
between her baggy jeans sneak in contraband that mostly pleasure us:-body spray,
dry pepper, indomie, lip gloss, fine camisoles etc it was as if our life depended
on it. She doesn’t leave our dorm which was forbidden for parental visit without
updating us on latest social, celebrity gist, latest movies, lyrics of all 50cents
tracks. She comes loaded with our slumbook questionnaire. We gist her about
our class crushes and funny seniors too. At that time, it felt more like she was our
classmate.
My first visit in the Uni. too was by nobody but almighty Taye. I told a
fellow to look out for the weirdest looking babe at the school car park. She even
took me round my own school; she attended CHM 101 lectures with me. We got
to my hostel only as if she had been long time friends with my neighbours. She
tasted from all they cooked, threw them all laughing endlessly with her gists. From
100level till now,I was never one week short of her calls either to check up on me
(sisi Saeedah ki lon happen???), nag or sha abuse me. That was usually topped up
with recharge cards and credit alert (manage this change abeg). Many nights when
am stumped on my Psychology course manual, she would be my second lecturer
breaking down all the difficult stuffs for me, she helped me via midnight calls
while we solve Clinical and Environmental Physiology courses together. Did I tell
you she was the most brilliant of us trio; with her major field of study in Public
Health.
I write a paragraph of trash, I read epistles and chapters of accolades for stuff
well written; what if you read from my Taye’s numerous write ups. You wouldn’t
only raise her a thumb of excellence I bet you’ld do that while you are up on your
feet. She was a genius and a lyricist. My peeps complain about my compulsive
obsession then you shouldn’t meet our chief neat freak Taye. I hear it all buzzing
about how weird and studious Sa’eedah can be, then you’ve not met my Taye whom
one minute you are both talking the most shitty thing alive then the next minute
she has taken you another world of her intellectual prowess. She clamors everyday
about social degradation and global warming. Oh I forgot! She was my cheat chip to all the debates, quiz and essays in secondary school that always earned me the
gold medal.
Sadly on the unaware 3rd
of April, precisely 12:41pm while I was just
boiling water for Eba that the Nokia tune ringtone of my phone announced the
most heart-quaking news of my life from my mummy “Help Help Olamide!! Taye
breathes no more:” I lost grip of everything I held and my feet balance. To be sure
of what my ears just heard, I called my cousin whom without mincing words
pronounced it. “Aunty Taye is dead” I roared from the core of my tears cavity, I
cried unto God that it better not be the Taye I just prayed for this morning as her
NYSC passing out parade and her 29th
birthday is just 2months to come. The Taye
that I couldn’t wait for to be made and we’ll cruise round globe together. Strong,
rugged Taye whom with the fracture of the tibia and fibula (leg bones), heavy
casted P.O.P and crutches made it the far miles of Imo state from Ibadan for her
NYSC camping last year. I just didn’t want to believe my ears even at the blaring
wailing I heard beneath the calls.
I blindly boarded on the next bus to Ibadan
sobbing and praying it not be true. Maybe a late expensive April fool joke. Only to
hit Ibadan with my next door neighbor Joba, we proceeded to UCH to be more
shocked that four central hospitals in the city of Ibadan confirmed her “B.I.D”
(brought in dead). Even at that, I made the one last call to her Corper friend to ask
of the situation in the last hospital where they were. He said they were returning
home. I asked if with my Taye or her “body” (that was to distinguish between life
and death) he replied; - “The Body”. In no time, my agile, vibrant Taye became a
body.
I stepped one foot into their street and I knew I’d been bereaved. With our
striking resemblance, everybody on the disrupted street pointed at me “there she
goes to behold her dead sister”. I found her laid in the ambulance still clad in the
same cloth with her twin. I yet wanted to be sure of my eyes; I went closer to her. She was transforming from warm to ice cold. Her arms folded like just in a
sleeping position. I watched her laid and heard how it all went down. That she
prayed fervently all night as if she knew her death was nigh, how she made a feast of
catfish soup and beckoned all her neighbours to come eat from, how she woke up
to caution Kenny from being a nagging witch, how she went back to sleep and
woke up no more.........
Everyone till now ask how I have been holding up. Those people never saw
my shattered Kehinde, my torn shredded mummy whom from miles of 5hours
journey got to the morgue yet hoping she would wake up, my fidgeting father all
the way 9hours from Abuja to Ibadan at 3:42am midnight to bury her dead strong
daughter. Who saw the congregation of her crying hommies and wailing students? Who heard the testimony of her neighbours about her large kind heart, who saw
me took her on my laps to the morgue, who helped me as her next of kin to fill her
embalment papers. Who was there the whole sleep murdered night with her
room breezy empty and her twin already a lunatic who screamed her name all
night. Her neighbors all rose at the time she usually wake up missing and
mourning their compound keeper, who would have washed all the gutter and hit
their naked babies’ butts. My father couldn’t even preach condolences as part of
his cleric calling. My mother in quaking faith sang praises unto the Lord. I
perceived her scent everywhere. Her street and environ was grave numb cos she
was a lover of all. Her burial was her own passing out parade with stream of khaki
corpers.,.......
Ask me again how am holding up when in their lone apartment,
everyone gone. I went through the tough ordeal of separating her stuffs from her
other pair.
They had all their things in twos to the least of a fancy pen. I held on to her
bulk of write ups I cried the more for her dreams unfulfilled....... I surfed through
all her neatly filed stuffs and mourn the day of her death.
Here I am in grief, yet thankful to God that I found few answers to the
puzzle of her announced death. She didn’t return to her maker in any of the ways
she came:- via blood, slime, cries, genitals (either of which could have been more
gruesome)........... She passed on peacefully from sleep.......*sighs*God gives
and take.
I hope this doesn’t make me too sad writer afterall? I promise the next post
will never be as such.
R.I.P to my fallen Oak Taye.
