By Uduma Kalu
There's a kind of news that comes to you like hammer on your head. It hits you hard and you stagger with the weight of the pain. The pain may flow away but the giddiness remains. But the pain never goes away. It throbs in the head. The blood still rushes to the brain when the mind is roused with the thought that Negro is gone.
The doubts persist.. Is it Negro? Is it real? Is it true? Questions. Questions. Questions.
Because there are things you think that happen only to others that will never happen to you. You are immune, because you are a chosen child of God. You are special, a child of a vow, a covenant child.
So, when you are hit like the death of a dear one, your very close one, your mind is filled with questions... God, why did you do this? Your head goes giddy. You are giddy as we are giddy today, deep in pain, lost in mourning, mourning Negro.
We called him Chineme, God works. He would later call himself Negro. Even then, Chineme never left our tongues for him. In our fondness for him, we shortened Negro to Anee.
Negro had no comparison in the family. He was our car engine when our parts failed. Without him, so many things would not be done. In him, we had somebody that mattered, an interpreter, an escort, an emissary even to places angels feared to tread. Negro would go with you. And boldly, he would stand with you.
Negro was more than a cousin. He set out with destiny thrust on him to be our senior brother, being the first of our Agbo, grandmother's grandchildren. And we all deferred to him. He was like the defacto father we had to us. Nothing was done in the family without first deferring to Negro.
And yet, he was so young. Yes, he took his responsibility of us very early in life. In those gilded years of absent fathers and lack, Negro, together with our late uncle, Mr. Okoro Okereke, called Teacher, and his younger brother, Mr. Kalu Okereke, stepped in as our benefactor in so many ways - clothes, shelter, feed, books, shoes, food, drinks, holidays, counselling, money.
He was full of love and care for us. Negro's passing is a huge loss, a big vacuum is created in the family..
He was sweet without bitterness. Soft without bone.
Negro was a good man in the fullest meaning of the word. They don't come that easy. Because Chineme was special, a covenant child. Because his birth was special, opening a floodgate for us that came later.
Today, they call them miracle children. When he came, it was indeed a miracle following a season of childlessness. So, his mother, my aunt Uzunma, named him Chineme, God works wonders.
Negro was God's gift to us in many ways. In our moments of despair, Negro made things easy. He confronted danger for us, with equanimity, sense and sensibility, with a calmness and passion driven with altruism, boldness and fearlessness.
Negro was to me the only senior brother, the first son of the family. That was Negro to me.
My senior brother is gone. God help me.
Wherever a cry was heard
No matter the distance
No matter the dangers
Negro came
Beyond solidarity
Defacto dad, senior
Senior brother
A boulder of a shoulder to lean on.. Negro!
Chineme. Farewell is a difficult word to say...
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