So the food wasn't uh the food things didn't come till probably I was like 28 or >> Yeah. It just wasn't even on my peripheral like that. >> You shared something really powerful with me um when we had our call which was about your father passing away.
>> Yeah. >> And you shared it with me and you just kind of almost cited it like it's this year then this happened then I then I did this. But it sat with me for so long and I didn't dive deep into it because >> I was trying to understand your life story.
>> But talk to me about his funeral, man. Because gosh, I put myself in your position and I was >> Yeah. >> thing to happen for a child.
>> Yeah. So, I was 15 when my dad passed. Um, it's January He passed January 11th, 1998, right?
And then, you know, we buried him January 30th, 1998. I'd never been to a funeral before. I'd never seen a dead body before.
I had no idea what to expect. I I remember the morning of the funeral. This This is so poignant in my my mind's eye.
I remember my room was at the front. This house we were in, we'd moved there. So, let me just back up a little bit.
>> So, my dad uh was ill. He had a brain hemorrhage. and 2 years before he died and then he eventually died of complications bronchy pneumonia.
So those two years he suffered he was in and out of hospital. Um it got to a point where my mom couldn't care for him obviously there was all of us as well became too much for her. So he had to go into uh assisted uh living care whatever you want to call it.
So those two years were very difficult and our family then moved. Um we had to move home again. Um what was supposed to happen is he was supposed to come home to this house.
We had a house that was um designed for his disability. So had a stairlift and all that sort of stuff and railings everywhere. He didn't make it.
He didn't make it to that house. The last time I saw my dad um was just before Christmas in 1997. Um that that day.
So I want to go back to the house we were in. So I remember that house particular house my bedroom was on the at the front of the house. So I had the front window and I remember everyone was scrambling around the house and everyone was getting ready and and I remember putting on this this horrible suit.
It was from like River Island. Horrible horrible suit. polyester and I had these like fake black Patrick Cox as well.
I thought I was the [ __ ] but yeah. Anyway, um I had this blue tie and this blue shirt. I remember putting on suit and looking out the window and seeing the hearse and we lived on a um culdeac.
Remember seeing the hearse come around and my heart just sunk. But at the same time, there was a ray of light that came through the window and I remember standing there and I was like, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I was like, what what am I supposed to do?
Like what's this feeling? So I thought, all right, just get on with it. Just carry on.
Um I remember getting to the church and the uh Paulbearers saying to me, uh you've got to walk ahead of the coffin. I'm 15. What the [ __ ] I got to walk.
What do you mean? like it's overwhelming and I've got mom, there's um all my sisters and the church is packed. It's heaving, right?
My dad knew a lot of people and um so I remember walking walking in front of the um the coffin and just being terrified. I remember being shaking, just terrified. So when the service commences and then you know at the end of the service they view the body and I remember [ __ ] myself.
I remember shaking because I hadn't seen my dad since I saw him alive which was now what maybe a month or so. So I remember coming up to the coffin and I remember seeing his shoes first and as I came up it was in slow motion. I remember walking up and we buried him in this beautiful um light gray suit and my mom asked me to pick it out cuz I don't want to bury him in black.
I was like black is so morbid like this just like he wants that we put him in this light gray suit and my dad used to wear glasses as well and we put his glasses in his top pocket. My dad was very smart like he that's how he dressed in life. He was always Mr Nekammy was very smart and poised, shoes, iron, shirts, everything.
Right. So, we put his glasses in his top pocket and a pen as well. And I remember coming up and then seeing the detail.
I remember seeing his shoes first, then seeing the handkerchief in the pocket. And then I came up and I looked in and I did not like what I saw. I had never seen a dead body before.
First of all, it didn't even look like him. I was like, "Fuck is this? " Like, "What?
what is and he, you know, they shrink. >> And it just wasn't him. But something in me was just like, "All right, he's there somewhere.
You're not going to see him again, so you're going to have to touch him. " I remember picking up his hand and it was like lead. It just went I remember the th it just was like lead and I just was like, "Oh, wow.
This is this is this is weird. " Um, so then we get past that and I remember them The pool bearer is securing the casket lid and they use this uh power screwdriver and you hear and I was shuddering cuz I was like that's final like that's it. So when we get to the um cemetery and I think this is the part where to to me to this day is still heavy.
um as the only son um we we bury our own right around our community you know West African Nigerian community we bury our own so all the men have to shovel the dirt into the um to the grave and I remember given being given the shovel by someone I don't know who it was and was just told to shovel the dirt in this grave and I remember it was this huge amount of dirt and I remember getting the shovel and I'm the only one doing it and I'm shoveling this dirt in and I'm looking down in this grave and I'm just like what the [ __ ] this is crazy and I remember in that part saying to myself don't break don't break because one of my uncles had said to me you know prior to the funeral you can't be seen to cry you can't be seen to show emotion you're the man in the house now the [ __ ] does that mean at Dean, what do you mean the man in the house? Like, what do you mean? Don't cry because if you cry, you're going to set your mom and your sisters off so you can't be seen to cry.
So, I had that as I'm shoveling the dirt. >> Did you feel like crying? >> Absolutely.
Every fiber in me was like terrified. I was I was more terrified than anything, right? Just seeing my dad's dead body and now I'm chucking dirt into this hole in a graveyard.
Like, what do you mean? like it's all confusing and it's it's scary. Um, >> it didn't feel real.
>> It felt surreal. Honestly, it didn't feel real. It felt like I can still smell the dirt, like the mud.
I can still smell it. Um, yeah. Honestly, it's it was real obviously, but at the time you're doing it, I'm 15.
I don't know anything. You don't know anything. What I know now, I look back and think, God, I was a baby.
I was a little boy, >> scared little boy and didn't have no guidance. There was no one to tell you what to expect. No one to tell you how to conduct yourself per se or what emotions were.
No one to guide me through what that feels like or this is what it's going to look like when you look into the coffin or this is what it's going to look like when you're at the grave site. I'd never been to a funeral before. So all of that mixed into, you know, the emotion of being a teenager, right?
Going through puberty, just the average everyday crap you're going through. You throw all that into the mix and you're like, "What the [ __ ] is going on here? " >> Is it still normal in Nigerian culture for men to not show any emotion at funerals?
Is that is that still the same? I think in any culture it's men don't get the okay to be emotionally available to show emotion I think okay it's somewhat shifting now but I still think men are not supposed to show emotion this is what I see in society men are not they're the providers they are the caretakers um physical and otherwise you're supposed to be there for every other facet but to be emotionally available for yourself, which I think is wrong. And I think that's across cultures.
>> Do you think you can cry and still provide? >> Absolutely. I think being in tune with your emotions is healthy.
>> It's understanding what these emotions are and not shying away from them. It's actually delving into them so you can go through it and see what does this feel like? What does this mean when that happens?
Oh, I can navigate by doing that and then I can get over it. Okay? You don't know that until you go through it.
Do you understand? >> So that smell of mud. >> Yeah.
>> You can still I mean burying your father is hard in in our culture week from eight. >> Okay. >> And so when I lost my grandfather I was 30.
I had all four my grandparents alive till I was 30. So I'm very blessed. And then when he died again, first dead body I'd really seen was someone super close.
M >> same thing man hand felt heavy couldn't recognize him >> and then >> it's not a good >> put him into the furnace and then when it caught me >> you saw that >> it's just I it took me a good six seven months >> just to understand what does it mean when someone who you've like a grandfather your second dad right >> right >> he so he's not here right so what does that mean now >> what does it mean >> what does it >> what does emptiness And for you to then be thrust into this position of being a man of the house. What the what does it mean to be a man of the house? Right.
>> Yeah. >> I know that was quite formative for you because you didn't quite know how to process it and certain parts of your life, especially academics, did suffer, right? >> I think what was interesting is um being told you're the man of the house now, >> right?
at 15. Your dad's just died. You're the man of the house now.
It's your mom. There's your three sisters in the household. And I have an older sister from my dad's side, which we didn't at the time.
We weren't in communication with um being told all of that and then told not to cry, not to show emotion, not to not not to do all that, it's heavy. >> That is like what do you mean? Like h how else am I supposed to feel in this?
How else am I supposed to communicate if I can't even get this out? Do you do you understand? It's it's it's ludicrous even think about it.
