Short Story
A part of me remains conflicted that I wasn’t at Papa’s side when the Grim Reaper came to collect his due. Years later, the tears still refuse to fall. I reckon that part of me is headstrong, unwilling to let them snake their way down the coarse lines of my face. The first few months after his passing were unnerving. I thought I would get closure if I could sit down and have a good cry—for the words I left unspoken, for the scars that would never heal, and for the pain that would become a constant companion.
Recently, I found myself struggling to remember what Papa looked like—his booming voice, the way his presence filled the air with an intangible weight. His strides across the red-earth compound in the village seemed to make the ground tremble. One of those frightening, “earth-to-Henry” moments startled me out of a daydream, and I scrambled toward the sitting room to look at the photograph hanging loosely on the wall. It was ragged with age, covered in soot from a hundred kerosene lamps. The image barely captured the man I remembered.
That dark morning, we had hurried to catch the first bus at Maza-Maza terminus to Abuja, where he had been urgently called. It was the first real sign that fate had begun to write the closing act on Papa’s life. Mama had trouble sleeping the night before. Her knee joint was inflamed after she returned from community evangelism at Ikotun. Nene had massaged her aching limbs, but I was too upset to offer sympathy. So, I made a mental note to confront the church pastor the next day; they couldn’t organise a bus for their elderly members but had no qualms about concocting levies and other obligations.
At 5 a.m., I was awake to accompany Papa to the park. The roads were treacherous, thick with mud from the rains and the darkness was all-consuming. We could hardly see beyond our noses. Flashes of lightning cut through the gloom, but they didn’t help. Instead, they made us pause, ducking as the thunder cracked overhead. I carried the bags, struggling to keep pace with the umbrella that flapped uselessly in the buffeting wind.
Turning into the main road, I nearly missed seeing Papa. A sudden flash from the headlights of an oncoming car revealed his hunched figure near a dilapidated bus. He was bent over, retching violently, clutching his sides as though every breath was a battle. His face contorted in pain, and for a moment, I froze in terror. I couldn’t recall him ever being sick, let alone so vulnerable. It was a sight I had never seen in all my years knowing him.
I dropped the bags, not caring that they landed in the mud and ran toward him. He straightened as he saw me approach, though it was clear he was struggling to maintain his composure.
“Old soldier never die,” I muttered to myself, trying to shake the fear. But this was different. His face betrayed him, and the lie he told me moments later—“Doing fine”—fell flat.
I reached for my phone to call for help, but Papa growled at me to put it away. He detested the idea of being perceived as weak. He demanded that we carry on, insisting he was fine, even though the wheezing breath that escaped his lips told another story.
Papa was stubborn. We had learned long ago never to challenge him. Stories of people who had trifled with Herbert—his name carried weight—were legendary. He was the sort of man who bent the tallest okra sprout back in line if it grew too far from the hedge. His children didn’t fare much better, and this rainy morning was no exception. He refused to let anything deter him from his mission to Abuja, even though his chest thumped heavily against my arm as we crammed into the bus. His breathing was labored, interrupted by rough, guttural sounds as he cleared his throat, his potbelly rising and falling in a way that might have seemed comical under different circumstances.
He swore me to secrecy, telling me this trip was vital—that the contract he was chasing would finally change our family’s fortunes. I had heard it before. It was the same refrain, again and again. But how could I argue when I had seen how much the weight of our financial burdens tormented him? He could barely keep the family afloat, and my salary was far too small to cover the gaping hole in our monthly expenses.
His bags returned without him.
Years after his death, I’ve tried to walk a few miles in his shoes, and often I find myself unable to fit him into any specific mold. Herbert was old-school, a man who believed in the necessity of getting rich or dying trying. He didn’t conform to the typical image of fatherhood. While others argued that being present was the cornerstone of family values, Papa insisted that financial capability was the essence of fatherhood. He rebelled against stereotypes and refused to believe that men were innately capable of producing little versions of themselves, without making provisions towards upkeep. For him, the world was too harsh for such simplicity.
He wasn’t the best dad, but he wasn’t the worst either. I suppose it’s like watching football from the sidelines—easy to criticize the players until you’re called onto the field and find yourself winded within minutes. “Who no go, no know,” he used to say.
Papa always had high hopes for us. Despite our rickety jalopy that chugged along at 20 kilometres per hour, with water seeping through the torn tarpaulin, he insisted we all deserved an education. He believed it was the key to emancipation. One school night, when my uncle forgot to pick us up from the neighbours’ house, Papa insisted we make the long trip back to Akesan. His angry bellow, “No child of mine will sleep in a stranger’s house,” echoed as my uncle—barefoot and terrified—raced to fetch us.
He had a heavy hand, though. Quick to discipline, perhaps a byproduct of his military background. Any sign of dissent earned you a swift punishment, and we learned to avoid him when he was in one of his moods. I remember receiving a football as a gift for doing well in school, only for Papa to destroy it weeks later when he caught me playing on the street—a strict no-no for the boys in the house.
As I grew older, I realised we had begun to avoid him—not out of spite, but out of habit. Even when he came to spend time with us, we left the room. He admitted to Mama, years later, that it hurt him. I imagine he didn’t understand that his strictness had created the distance.
Then there were the days when he took us on his escapades around town. We were roped into a conspiracy of silence, sworn not to tell Mama about the random women he picked up—the “instant aunties” who would suddenly join us on our drives. I recall sitting with him in beer parlours, watching as he nursed a glass of Guinness stout, gently caressing his Samanja-like moustache while Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” played softly in the background. He was a masterful storyteller, regaling his date with tales of the Civil War. In exchange for my silence, I was often treated to snacks from Mr. Biggs.
He lived fast, never one to believe in saving for rainy days. Life, he insisted, was meant to be lived to the fullest. Hunger didn’t bother him because he believed the next contract was always around the corner, ready to rescue us from our struggles. When the contracts came through, the house overflowed with food—bags of rice, beans, garri, chicken, croaker fish, and more. For a while, we lived like kings. But hunger always lingered on the horizon.
I remember one day in particular. Papa put on his best clothes and dragged me to a high-end car showroom. He casually inquired about the price of a Jaguar on display. I thought he had lost his mind, but he walked away muttering something about getting another reason to “make it one day.”
And then he was gone.
The hotel said he died peacefully in his sleep as if that piece of information would somehow soften the blow. There was too much left unsaid, too many unanswered questions for it to have been the right time. He had his failings, sure. But he was also there, in his own way, when it mattered. I hated seeing him sick, defenceless—a shadow of the man he once was. That image of his weak frame is seared into my memory, and nothing short of an exorcism will rid it from my mind’s eye.
As time passes, I find myself wondering if closure will ever come. Perhaps it’s not about the tears I’ve yet to shed or the words left unspoken. Maybe it’s about accepting that we are all, in some way, the sum of our contradictions. Papa was no different. He was a man who tried, who dreamed, who failed, and who loved in the only way he knew how. And maybe, in the end, that’s enough.
– Written by ‘Fortune Ohaegbulam, an Operations Specialist who works a little too hard and wishes he could play a little harder. When he’s not deep in discussions about Direct Air Capture, Hydrogen, or Climate Change, you’ll find him enjoying long walks or a good book – feeding his wild imagination and keeping the creative juices flowing!’
