UNotes 6 : NGOZI OKORONKWO

NGOZI (NEE NWIYI) OKORONKWO

Gentle, slow talking, dark beauty. She is the very first female I would openly call my friend and really mean it. Though levels ahead of me in school, we struck such a union that I grew without intending to. She does not hide her feelings neither does she carry it on her sleeve.

My creativity in writing was honed by her demand for poems. She loved to read my poems and though I was just a beginner, she never bothered. I loved being with her because she was never really anxious. She had this calm temperament but you could never tell what she was capable of doing just by looking at her. I called her my school mother and she was to me a very dear friend. In the days of no chats and long letters, we communicated. Nothing stopped our communication and she helped me find my voice.

I was so shy then. I was very shy and it showed. Some people thought I was just gentle and silent but a lot of my gentle nature was attributed to my shyness and she knew better. The day she was to leave campus. I saw her off to the campus gate and together with one of her friends, i bade her farewell. As she was about to enter the taxi cab, she moved to hug me and I shrunk back and said something like “I am not used to that” and the friend wasted no time in corresponding, “there is always a first time”. That got me my first official side hug.

Ng as we called her was a character and her manner of speaking always caught my attention. She did a lot to encourage me and care for me in the way that she could but I noticed years later that she wished she had done more. We were friends in the truest sense of the word and I enjoyed being her friend. Meeting her family was wonderful and real, years later.

She is not a flashy person, not materialistic and would hardly draw attention to herself. Studying geology in school would have been a great challenge for her yet she saw it through. Sacrificing for people was like second nature to her as she would demonstrate in shelving her certificate to help her mum in grooming young minds.

I haven’t met another lady as simple, calm and dramatic as this lady and I still remember her voice in my head. She could be as difficult as any woman would be to an insensitive and inattentive man but it was all part of the package.

She sprayed me with salt and water on one of my birthday commemorations and as I frowned she told me that salt and water signified life and preservation. I stopped frowning and pondered in smiles.

Dear Ng, keep being calm, keep being the mother and wife you are, keep being Ng and don’t lose God.

Charles says..U Mellow