Guest post by @crystalll: Uncle Tony

"Life is a journey, never let the fear of striking out, keep you from living”

I remember uncle Tony very well, He was a tall thin, dark and very jovial man. His Ibo intonation was unmistakeable the way he put “nna ehn” in front of almost all his words, and the way he called my mum “Mume”. When he was not speaking, he would send out his tongue and hang it loose to the left corner of his lips. He was my father’s mechanic and not my biological uncle, but he earned the title. When I was just beginning primary school, and something happened in my family that changed us all, it became uncle Tony’s duty to drop us off at school and pick us later when classes were over. As is normal with children, sometimes we would make so much noise on our drive home and he would throw quick glances at us and say “Talk less”.

Uncle Tony would bring several cars to pick us and when we asked who owned them, in children’s curiosity, he would tell us he was servicing the cars. Sometimes after he picked us up from school, he would drive by his shop to “check on things”, as he put it. I enjoyed each time we had these drive-bys. I would watch several other mechanics chatter away in pidgin as they tried to put back parts of a car together. Uncle Tony would then buy us roast plantain or yam (which was majorly one of the reasons I enjoyed these drive-bys). I saw uncle Tony as a very hardworking man.

Time passed, we all grew up. Uncle Tony scarcely visited as everyone went to boarding school and there was no “drop-offs” or “pick-ups”. We moved very far away and soon enough, uncle Tony was called only few times, due to distance, maybe at Christmas and other times, if he could visit.

Eight months ago, my mum called uncle Tony and someone else answered the phone. When she asked where uncle Tony was, the receiver answered that uncle Tony was dead. My mum stood still with her phone in hand, motionless for few seconds before she got her voice and screamed. I ran to where she was and asked what had happened. She said uncle Tony was dead. It wasn’t the first time someone close to me had died but uncle Tony’s death shocked us all. My eyes were too heavy to let out any tears as even my imaginations failed me regarding how he could have died. I prayed for his soul, wondering where it would end up.

Today I remembered uncle Tony again, I wondered if he had other dreams than being a mechanic all his life, especially because he was working for someone. My advice is for you to use life while you have it, live it to the fullest. Make impacts, chase your dreams and catch up with them, be ambitious to accomplish your purpose, find love and give it away too, be a child before you become an adult, laugh as much as you breathe. The biological clock keeps ticking and waits for no man.