You sometimes never understand how important something or someones role is until they're not there. My phone had been stolen for about two weeks before I was finally able to replace it.
I'd logged in on Facebook that night when I saw I had quite a number of notifications. Looking through them, I discovered there were a lot of them from my high school friends. I wasn't ready for the shocker I was about to see.
Almost all the notifications had the same content, RIP TEMITOPE. To say I was shocked was really an understatement, because I just couldn't put my head around it. We'd all graduated from high school about a year prior, and although I didn't get to see most of my classmates anymore, TEMITOPE wasn't one of them. He lived about four streets away from me, infact I could remember seeing him about two weeks before.
We hadn't been best of friends, but looking back I realized it was probably because I was too rigid at the time. Although I wouldn't have termed him as unserious, he was simply that guy who was everywhere. It didn't matter whether it was the serious mood of exam week or fun mood of sports week, you could count on him to liven up any group, anytime and anywhere.
As I scrolled through the comment section of the various posts about him, there was the general rendition of Remember when ...... as everyone tried to outdo each other in remembering and sharing his best memories with us. It was bittersweet thinking about all of those memories, but I realized that this guy might not have seen eighteen, but had really lived. I smiled as I thought about most of my absolute favorites, which was TEMITOPE in any Yoruba language classroom.
In any Yoruba classroom, he didn't just thrive, he absolutely came to Life.
Yoruba one of the language spoken in Nigeria, is also a subject in it's schools. I was never good at languages and even though I was born in a city where Yoruba language was like the air we breathe, I still struggled to speak it and studying it didn't make any real difference.
Next class would be Yoruba Language for a double period in about five minutes, but Temitope was already standing at the class entrance carrying the Yoruba teachers lecture note. This display wasn't new to the present teacher in class as everyone knew when it came to Yoruba class, Temitope couldn't be reasoned with. Even though I dreaded speaking it, I'd come to love the hilarious exchange that usually came up between him and the teacher.
The five minutes was soon up and like an usher, he ushered the previous teacher out of the class and stylishly walked in the Yoruba teacher acting like her bodyguard. We all knew it would definitely be an hour and half of pure comedy.
"Mummy, come sit here. I don't want you to stress yourself today, I'll be taking over today's class" he said as he playfully ushered her towards his own seat.
"Ahh thank you my wonderful son" she replied as she took the offered seat.
Temitope was soon standing in front of the class as he wrote on the board the word REVISION. It was just a week before our final exams and most of the teachers spent this time revising all that we'd done all through the term. Apparently Temitope would be taking over the days revision class. He could be funny and we were counting on the class to be hilarious, but no one could fault the fact that Yoruba language subject was his strong point.
"Alright class listen up, ........" he began
The class was one of the best, filled with laughter as every joke seemed doubly funny. Particularly as he seemed to target me. Everyone knew how much I struggled to speak the language, and Temitope made it his job to ask me questions with funny and sometimes nonsensical answers in front of the whole class.
He was like an artist made who'd found his genre of music, it was a match made in heaven.
Thinking about that particular memory and the saddening thought that I would never again see that bright smile, or hear him taunt me in Yoruba language almost brought tears to my eyes. But I also consoled myself with the thought that his life was a life well lived.
