Death Ugo
Dear Uncle Stanley,
Hi, it’s been a while. I hope you’re doing great. It’s 2023 now and I just realised me and you haven’t really spoken since the year began. I just went through our messages—the first conversation we ever had—which was the one where you asked me to send the pictures I took of grandma. I remember clearly, your enthusiastic little ‘Beautiful Pictures.well done Ugoo.’ Such short words but they had me overly elated. I remember you replying ‘Amen’ to the post I made for Aunty Chi’s birthday, which I simply loved. I didn’t reply, what else could one reply to an Amen? Amen 2x?
I remember the times I saw KC on the phone with Davina and Amara as I went about my business. In my head I already concluded that KC was the favourite cousin; I didn’t have it in me to fight it. I remember the time we spoke after my UTME exams, where you congratulated me and told me that you would make preparations for me to come spend my holidays with you and possibly start my university there too(I remember my search history had ‘Universities in Brazil that had medical schools’ and ‘is Portuguese hard to learn’). Funny right?
Backtracking to when I was a kid, I always saw you as the strict uncle because I read your comments under Chinenye’s posts where you constantly scolded her for being vulgar. I never let you see any of mine because I didn’t like to imagine you with a scowl on your face thinking: ‘So Ugochi’s like this now?’ Or you calling my mum and telling her that her kid had gone off the hinges. I just couldn’t risk it. Another vivid memory was of my mum telling me you had studied Chemical Engineering in Uni. I just couldn’t picture you without the helmet and uniform yelling ‘Stop’ to other workers in an oil mine. Don’t even ask. My mind is so weird.
So, imagine my confusion that Sunday when Uncle Agozie stopped KC and I from entering the church after grandma. It was weird(and weird is my best attempt at explaining how it felt). He asked us if we knew you. ‘Do you know Uncle Stanley?’ He asked. Weird. It would have been strange if I said I didn’t know Uncle Stanley. It was even stranger that he asked. KC and I were staring at each other now, confusion etched on our faces. Uncle Agozie proceeded, ignoring our confusion. He held his phone in his hand now and was searching for something while he spoke to us. ‘Uncle Stanley…’ he began, but cut himself off. I stared at KC. I stared at Uncle Agozie. He continued again: ‘Uncle Stanley…has died.’ Now, that was weird. ‘Died’ was a word used to describe people that had given up the ghost and were no longer alive anymore. ‘Died’ was not a word I could use to describe someone whose voice I had heard the previous day, speaking to my mum. I just could not imagine using ‘Died’ to describe my helmet-wearing, Oil drilling Uncle. ‘Died’ was weird. I did not like ‘Died’.
I remember the little ‘how’ I whispered and the tears that fell out unconsciously. I remember looking at the picture Uncle Agozie had searched up on his phone(he finally found what he was looking for) and it was a picture of you. You with bandages all over you. You as someone that had ‘died’. I did not understand the picture I was looking at. I still do not understand that picture till date. I looked around waiting for someone to yell April Fools, but it didn’t happen. It was in October.
I never texted you before, but the option of you texting me was always there. I never knew there was a time, I could text you and you would not reply to me. I remember my mum telling me that she did not believe she would never hear from you again and all I could do was keep mute. I could not understand the concept of never hearing from you again. That felt so foreign. I remember my mum telling me they had brought back your body. She did not say ‘my brother is back.’ Instead she said ‘they have brought back my brother.’ My monkey mind imagined you being handcuffed and brought in by the police. That was certainly better than what she meant.
Finally, I remember the day they called your burial. How KC had deceived me into thinking that going in to see the body was compulsory. How I had stared right at you and expected you to open your eyes. I stared at your hands and expected you to move them. I stared at you and expected you to breathe. You did not. I remember everyone around me crying. I was crying too, but I did not understand why. I remember them lowering you into the ground, and covering you up with sand and all I could think of was that they were probably suffocating you to death. My mum annoyed me a day after that. She randomly asked; ‘what side is my brother’s head?’ She was urging me to look at you. I hadn’t looked at you since ‘your burial’. I didn’t answer her.
Fast forward to many months later, I don’t have much clarity either. Didi says I need to heal. I guess I really need to, otherwise my heart would never stop quickening when I hear your name. Nowadays, I rarely ignore whenever I see KC speaking to Davina and Amara anymore. I guess I suddenly want to be the favourite cousin for some reason. I read our messages sometimes and I wish I had typed something in response to you. Maybe even Amen 2x. Just something that would keep the conversation going. I wish I had let you see the stuff I post. I don’t even post stuff that is that crazy anyway.
Well, it’s 2023. I’m surprised we didn’t get to be in it together. I would’ve loved it if we were here together. I mean, who else would call me ‘Ugoo’ in that calm voice that my mum would have to remind me to include ‘Sir’ while replying? Nothing much has changed since anyway. Not the way mum talks about how calm you are. Not School stressing me (Yes, I’m in a really annoying school now). Definitely not me picturing you in your helmet by the oil mine. The man at ‘your burial’ said you were a good person and you were surely in heaven. I don’t know much about heaven, but I hope you’re there and I hope you’re having a truckload of fun because that’s the only way missing you would be worth it.
Yours but not yours,
Ugoo.