Memories of A Great Favour

I remember when, in 2015, a friend that I owe a huge favour introduced me to his younger niece who was in-between Secondary school and University at the time. He had told me so much about this girl who, in his words, would grow up to be the Chimamanda of the family. My friend pleaded with me to look at the forty page novella which the young girl had written. It’s important I mention that this friend of mine studied (or was studying) engineering at the time so novels weren’t really his thing.

As I was really busy trying to find me feet as writer and as a student at that time, I had no time to even breath. After my friend convinced me to take a look at the niece’s novel and see how I can fine tune it, I reluctantly agreed.

The moment I opened the book, I discovered that this young girl had written a ‘terrible’ piece of work that needed to be put away and forgotten about. Almost all the shortcomings of this 40 page novella, the worst was that the story was set in America, a place she had not been to.

After a week of assiduous effort of navigating through the poorly written sentences and grammatically bad English, I was able to structurally edit the first two chapters. I called my friend and gave him the work but he insisted I must see his niece to explain to her why I didn’t finish editing the whole book.

On the day I met the niece in the company of the uncle at a popular eatery in Nsukka, I sat the young girl down and told her how impressed I was that she had the discipline to sit down and put down something at such a young age. Then I told her to look at the first two chapters I already edited and try to take a cue from it. I however told her that the next time she is writing a story that she should write about a place and a thing she is familiar with. In her shy manner, she smiled and thanked me. Then she begged me to edit the whole work but I told her I was very busy and that that was the much I could do.

I ran into that girl yesterday. After expressing my condolence to her on the death of his uncle (my friend), I asked if she had published her work and she smiled a mild smile. Then I saw tears in her eyes (or did I imagine it?). She told me that since her uncle died she gave up on writing because nobody else in the family encouraged her. She said something about paying full attention to her academics. She’s now a third year student of Library and Information Science in UNN.
When we parted ways yesterday, I started feeling guilty that I probably killed this young girl’s dream of being a writer. If only I had kept my head calm and finished editing her work like she begged me.

Let me mention that my friend, the girl’s uncle, died from complication from sickle cell. May His Soul Continue To Rest In Peace.