This past June marked the fifteenth year since we purchased our family home. That is fifteen revolutions around the sun, an undisputed fact of existence that routinely blows my mind. Significant memories have been created, good and bad, at different points during the years, and within the confines of our place. Mom and I are dutiful tenants of a house that doubles as a thread linking aspects of a thriving Igbo community. We take that responsibility seriously.
Some of the best memories are outgrowths of the food prepared in the home, wrapping hearts in warmth. Still a willing and exquisite cook, Mom is an expert confectioner of dishes that span the cultural spectrum. My favorite dish is plantains, or plãtanos if you are of the Hispanic persuasion. Ah, the aroma that wafts from plantains. It floats over to me, clinging to my nostrils and forcefully pulling me in the direction of plates situated on top of the oven. Fried plantains, fresh out of the pot, are cut into thick and shiny slices, and strategically stacked until they are about to tip over. As I inhale the aroma, I extend a hand to pilfer a slice, ogle it, and then drop it down my throat. Mom smiles, as she does not seem to mind at all.
As I was pilfering plantains in November 2012, the phone rang, prompting an urgent response from my father. He ran to the phone, displaying some of the quickness and agility that had served him as a luminous track star in the previous century. Seconds after pressing the receiver against his ear, his entire face collapsed. “You want me to come in for a biopsy?” he asked.
My father listened intently as the person at the other end of the line explained why he needed to visit the hospital with haste. I did not even know what a biopsy referred to back then, but I felt the import of the word, deep down in my bones. I let go of a piece of plantain and perked my ears to listen.
“I will be there,” said Dad, sounding dispirited. It was the first time I had heard my dad sound so scared. He sighed heavily as he put down the receiver, for he had been dealing with so many health concerns then.
“What is wrong?” I asked as I approached him. His face was still downcast, projecting gloom, and it startled me.
“Something is going on with my blood, Eze.”
“Oh. That is why the doctor wants to see you?”
“Yes.”
My heart was thumping, threatening to burst through my chest. “They didn’t say anything else?”
“They wouldn’t tell me too much more,” said Dad, his voice timid. “Just that I had to come.”
Silence fell as Dad and I considered our next responses. Our thoughts were aligned. We knew it was bad.
“I’m going to go with you to the hospital,” I said.
“No, Eze,” said Dad. “You do not need to go with me. The appointment is on the day when you have to go to work.”
It was the type of answer I expected from my father, a relentlessly generous individual who put my needs before his own. He was also a first-generation American, the second son of Nigerian village dwellers. During his formative years in the village, he had shared a tiny bungalow space with a sister and brother, thus engendering his tendency to put others above himself. Decades later, as a husband and father, he remained the unquestioned leader of a household, usually brooking no deviation from his word by his only son. Nevertheless, I was thirty-seven years old, a grown man in many respects, and concerned about my father’s health. He was not going to persuade me to back down, not on that day.
I rested a hand on my dad’s shoulder, a spontaneous gesture that surprised him and me. Although Dad and I expressed love for each other, usually in an unspoken manner, shared physical expressions of affection between the two of us had been rare. “I’m going to go to the hospital with you, Dad. They are not going to fire me for helping you. Please, let me come.”
Dad sighed as he took a moment to ruminate. “Okay, Eze. We will go there together.”
A week later, my hand shook as I held the paper containing my dad’s diagnosis. It was multiple myeloma, a blood cancer most common in black men over age sixty-five. Dad, as he sat next to me, was in a state of shock. “Cancer?” he said, suddenly without wind.
Dad and I peppered the bespectacled oncologist with all kinds of questions. What was the treatment plan? Does insurance cover the treatment? How long could my father expect to live? As the oncologist responded to our questions, he imbued us with some hope. He was aware of several individuals who had gone on to survive for multiple years following a similar diagnosis. Still, Dad would need to begin receiving treatment right away because his cancer was more pernicious than usual, rapidly spreading to his kidneys, further short-circuiting their functionality. He would certainly die within the next few months if nothing was done to combat the cancer. I turned to my father. His jaw was set.
Dad was approaching his seventieth year of existence, and his advanced age further cut into his prospects for survival. Nevertheless, he was tougher than a baobab tree, a former infantryman who had survived the Biafra Civil War. He was the type of guy who would fight cancer with everything he had.
Dad started his American journey from way behind. As a new immigrant and Colorado resident in 1975, he was forced to share a single apartment with four of his countrymen. My mom arrived a year later, married my dad, and the two of them found a small apartment in East Denver. They spent the next thirty-eight years together, earning multiple degrees and rearing three children, often balancing the needs of the community with their children’s needs. An unrelenting work ethic, coupled with a stringent devotion to saving, yielded the resources necessary to buy our forever home.
Dad and Mom accomplished more than many natural-born citizens. However, there was still too much for Dad to do and see, thus he was not ready to lose his life. I was supportive for an assorted number of reasons, predominantly because I was not ready to become the only man in my immediate family.
Approximately one year after he received his diagnosis, the cancer deemed as terminal, Dad gained admission into hospice care. My family and I were relieved at first, for a few reasons, the most salient being his escape from a horrible hospital environment. Dad’s caretakers had referred to the hospital wing as Select, an appropriate name, because as the time for his transfer to hospice care approached, the Select team proved to be distinctive in their negligence and cruelty. We caught Dad lying in his filth, his naked body situated amongst pellets of human feces, a particularly heartbreaking image that remains imprinted in my head.
Dad always insisted on spending his last days in the comfort of his home. In between bouts of incoherence, he would gather all of his remaining strength to string three or four words together, begging us to take him back to the house. However, Dad was confined to a special bed, completely devoid of the once formidable vigor that had propelled him during soccer games and track meets. He could not bathe himself, required a catheter to remove the urine from his bladder, and his muscles had completely atrophied. As much as we wanted to take him home, we could not accede to his request. He probably would not have survived the journey anyway, and our home was not equipped to support the needs of a terminally ill family member. Still, Mom and I were not strong enough to tell my father “no” outright. I would simply look away as I said, “We are working towards getting you home, Daddy.”
The Denver Hospice was the perfect environment, an amalgamated healthcare facility and resting place. Apart from the appearance of the bed in which my dad was confined, the room was delightful, projecting the ambiance of home. The humongous girth of Dad’s room easily accommodated the needs of his entire family. We were able to bring pillows, chairs, and blankets with us as we took shifts watching and waiting for him. Our customs require attending to an ailing family member at all hours of the day, a practice that was enabled by the visitation policy administered by the hospice facility. The medical staff took notice of my family during the first few days, and came away highly impressed by our dogged devotion to my father. One of the nurses, almost breathless as she extolled our virtue, whispered to me: “Your father is so lucky. You are a family full of superstars, and I wish there were more like you.”
“He makes it easy for us to be here,” I said.
Dad was unlike the other hospice residents, who seemed to wilt from the pain they were suffering through. There was one older woman, situated two doors down from where my father stayed. She would scream and curse uncontrollably, almost every single day, forcing her family members to flee from the room for at least a little while. Dad was often quiet, his voice barely above a whisper, drawing all of us toward him.
My regard for members of the hospice staff, who repeatedly expressed their affinity for my father, grew with the passage of each day. Of course, they could do nothing to improve his prognosis. We all knew that he was going to die, albeit in a dignified manner, because the hospice staff treated my dad with respect, making sure that his body was covered, his bed cleaned, and his face shaven. They washed his body every day, applied lotion to his arms and legs, and fitted him with different colored t-shirts. After Dad stopped eating and talking, leading to a cessation of nourishment, he was given morphine to assuage the hunger pangs. Moreover, when the priest came to offer my father his last rites, Janie, a kindly blond nurse, held my hand as we prayed.
Eventually, our peace would be disturbed, as angry phone calls from the community rained down upon our heads. They lambasted me in particular, my father’s first and only son, saying that I was violating cultural norms and God by extension. They demanded explanations for why I had not informed them about my dad’s illness from the very beginning, and dismissed my response to their inquisitions — dad did not want anyone outside of the immediate family to know he was sick because he could not abide people gossiping about him. They upbraided my mother because we kept Dad in the hospice instead of a traditional health facility. Some in the community, possessing a limited understanding of a hospice’s purpose, cast doubt on my intentions. We enrolled Dad in the hospice because we wanted him to die with his dignity intact. Those who were skeptical suggested that we could be trying to kill my father on purpose.
“Why aren’t you giving him any nourishment?” said Virginia, an accusatory woman from Atlanta who shared my last name.
I attempted to explain why feeding Dad was pointless at that moment. His organs were shutting down and food would provide him with no long-term benefit. And after suffering through a miserable year, we did not want to protract the agony. “There is nothing more that we can do for him,” I said. “We are doing what is best”.
“I do not believe that you have done everything you can, said Virginia, her voice rising in intensity. “You are sinning. That is what you are doing. He should be at home and kept alive for as long as possible.”
The community knew of my plans to bury my father in Denver, Colorado, his adopted home, another unpardonable sin because custom required that his burial take place in Amaigbo, Nigeria, his ancestral home. And yet, Nigeria is positioned approximately seven thousand miles from Denver, Colorado, requiring the use of two different airlines to get to Lagos, the former capital city. Amaigbo, the land of the Igbos, is a township located in the southeastern part of the country. Situated within the Amaigbo Township is Umuduruoha, a remote village. We had traveled as a family to the village in 1993, when I was barely seventeen years of age. My memories of the experience were not pleasant, as it took us days to travel from Lagos to the village. I remember being hot, irritable, and getting progressively dirty during the harrowing journey. The mosquitos were beastly, unrelenting in their attacks upon my body. The comforts of home were non-existent. I was able to visit with my grandmother before she died, which made the hardship worth it. But after arriving back in Denver, I’d promised myself that I would never visit the village again.
I wanted to visit my father’s burial site as often as I could, a task that would have been made infinitely easier if he had been laid to rest in Denver. The community responded to my demands with the threat of expulsion, a fate that my mother could not abide. So, we negotiated a compromise, an outcome that everyone abhorred because no one got one hundred percent of what they wanted. Dad’s body would be interred beneath the grounds of his ancestral home, with his burial witnessed by my mother and Camille, my baby sister, aspiring lawyer, and world traveler. I would remain at home because, well, despite protests to the contrary, my mom could not be assured that I would be safe in the village. Dad would soon be gone, leaving me as the only man remaining in our family. Traditionally, our society has placed a premium on the value of the man, a view routinely espoused by my mother. At age thirty-seven, I was regarded as too old to be unmarried without children. But I was still young enough to find a good woman and sire a few babies, thus granting my mom the exalted status of grandmother. There was just too much at stake, and Mom didn’t want to leave anything to chance when it came to ensuring an important piece of father’s legacy.
My mom and Camille, along with an aunt and uncle, accompanied my father on his last journey to his village. I regularly communicated with my baby sister through the Facebook application on my phone. Through the uploading of photos, Camille relayed a mixed ambiance. Mom and Camille were positioned at the forefront of nearly every photo, dressed head to toe in black, their faces made of stone. Extended family members occupied their left and right flanks, giving me the impression that my mother and sister were protected and forgiven, which is what we’d all come to want.
On the last day of her sojourn through the Amaigbo Township, Camille sent me images of a large house, the one my father and his family had been building since he’d arrived in the United States. As I cycled through each one of the photos, my heart fell further and further down, before ultimately crashing and splitting into pieces. The house was a veritable empty husk, devoid of doors, windows, floors, and pipes, an uninhabitable place and an insult to my father’s memory. As previously intimated, my father spent thirty-eight years in his adopted hometown, incessantly scrimping and saving, managing every single penny so that he could put enough money away to build that house, a symbol of status and success for every Igbo man. Dad had funneled tens of thousands of dollars to his family through Western Union over decades, assigning responsibility for the construction of the house to his brother and sister. Instead of applying the majority of the funds toward finishing the house, my dad’s brother, an uncle by blood, had redirected the majority of the funds to satisfy miscellaneous expenditures. Camille and I, frantically exchanging messages, expressed our outrage and grief before she was ultimately called away.
How could they do that to him? I thought.
Our builder spent three months completing the house I currently live in, a two-story, four-bedroom, and twenty-two hundred square foot building made from scratch. The builders were strangers, but seemed more trustworthy than members of my own extended family.
***
In the summer of 1995, I was eighteen years old, a few months away from matriculating into Boston University, one of the most expensive colleges in America at the time. The composite cost of college after four years was one-hundred twenty-thousand dollars, an amount that my family could never have afforded without an immense amount of assistance. Fortunately for me, I was the type of student Boston University was searching for back then, a black student-athlete who’d scored well on his Scholastic Aptitude exam and graduated near the top of his high school class. Boston University officials did what they could to make college more affordable for me, offering a combination of student loans and merit grants. After combining the school’s financial package with the relatively small annuity payment I’d earned from a local benefactor, the out-of-pocket cost for university — two thousand dollars per semester — became a lot more manageable. Nevertheless, it was still two thousand dollars, a significant amount of money for lower-middle-class parents with three children. Mom and Dad were determined to pay the remaining amount, though, as they regarded my acceptance into this world-renowned college as a gateway to a better life.
Dad’s older brother, Emmanuel, my uncle, still lived in Umuduruoha, Nigeria in the summer of 1995. Because Dad was unable to visit Nigeria frequently, he could not exert sufficient control over how his money was spent. Dad routinely expressed concerns about his brother’s flippancy with money, but always acceded when his brother asked him for more funds. That summer, Uncle Emmanuel, while calling from Nigeria, asked my father for five hundred thousand naira, roughly six thousand American dollars at the time. When my Dad, flummoxed by the request, asked Uncle Emmanuel why he needed so much money so quickly, Uncle Emmanuel responded by saying he needed money to buy a van.
After putting the phone on speaker, Dad questioned Uncle Emmanuel using Igbo: “What do you need to buy a van for?”
Responding in Igbo, Uncle Emmanuel said, “We need a van so that we can carry materials we use to build the house.”
“How far along are we in building it?” asked my father, sounding annoyed. “Please let me know of your progress so far.”
We’d visited Uncle Emmanuel, a prolific progenitor (he had seven kids), four years before he spoke with my dad on that day. He didn’t look anything like my father, as his skin was much darker, his nose broader, and his lips thicker. Igbos are known to engage in polygamous relationships, as a collection of wives is reflective of the vigor and success of an adult man. I assumed that Uncle Emmanuel had been a product of a relationship between my grandfather and another wife.
Uncle Emmanuel drove us to the spot where the house was being erected, a plot of orange dirt with a concrete foundation sitting atop it, surrounded by a thicket of wild trees. Surely, after four long years, there must have been some significant headway.
“We are almost done, my brother,” said Uncle. “Just a few more touches with the kitchen, living room, and the bathroom. But we need to transport large equipment in the van so that we can finish.”
“Alright,” said Dad, sighing. “I’ll get you the money.”
“Thank you, brother.”
We didn’t have six thousand dollars to spare, which left me furious and worried. As Colorado residents, Dad and Mom had worked to support two separate families, requiring that my sisters and I do more with much less. I briefly considered giving up my spot at Boston University, at least for the upcoming year. How were we going to pay for my tuition and a new van?
A day after the ending the phone call with Uncle Emmanuel, Dad said, “You’re not going give up your spot at that college.”
“How are we going to afford all this?” I asked.
“We’ll find a way.”
***
Dad earned a finance degree from Regis University, a small Jesuit College situated in West Denver, and also my alma mater. He had not been able to parlay his scholastic achievements into finding his coveted job as a finance manager with a successful business conglomerate. He ended up working at Denver International Airport, coordinating meal preparations for Continental Airlines flights. He was bitterly disappointed with his role as an airline employee, often citing his race and immigration status as reasons for why he had not been hired — he accepted the flight coordinator job in 1986, when Ronald Reagan, an avowed racist manipulated the reins as President of the United States. He eventually arrived at acceptance of his fate because he had a wife and three kids to feed.
In the summer of 1995, at the airport, there sprung a need for professional wheelchair pushers, individuals acting as human couriers for disabled airline passengers. Dad took one of the available positions on a part-time basis, adding six additional hours to his twelve-hour work day. He was about fifty-one years old at the time, give or take a few years, an age when most human beings start to slow down. But Dad worked furiously for three months, utilizing that relentless immigrant work ethic as he collected as many passengers as he could, because more passengers meant the accrual of more tips. As he worked to secure additional funds for the van, the rest of us committed to scrimping that summer, choosing to spend money on the things we needed. At the end of the summer, Dad was physically and emotionally wrung as if he were a wet towel, because he spent three months working eighteen-hour days. And yet, he was able to reach and surpass his goal, securing enough money to pay for the van and the remaining portion of my tuition requirement.
I’m over forty now, and occupy the role of leader in my community, as I am often referred to as Mazi (sir) by brothers and sisters in the tribe. It is an honor to be recognized and extolled by other Igbos, my people. But every time I cycle through the pictures of my father’s unfinished house, which is at least once a day, my emotions, mixtures of anger and sadness, overwhelm me. I know how hard my dad worked during that pivotal summer. Those photos are a reminder that it could all have been for naught.
Because of a recent promotion, my salary has been substantially engorged, and I can afford a lot more things, approximately twenty thousand dollars worth. For years, Mom has been complaining about our basement, an unfinished five-hundred-square-foot structure, where a whole bunch of stored sundries have been molding and gathering dust. Mom is intent on finishing the basement, a project that would require substantial outlays. As I ruminate over the amount of money and time required to complete such a humungous job, my latent anxiety spikes, causing my forehead to perspire. However, against my better judgment, Mom and I put together an outline encompassing plans for carpeting and furnishing of the space. Mom and I frequently revisit the plan, prompting a smile from her, as this basement project is her crown jewel, the denouement to the flurry of improvements — a new washing machine, kitchen chairs, and big screen television — added to our home during the previous year. We would have begun the process of comparing quotes if not for the reminder we received from another member of the larger community, Rachel, a friend of my mother and one of many individuals who share my last name.
She does not share my blood, but I still call her Auntie Rachel because Igbo custom requires that I refer to her in traditional familial terms. Auntie Rachel frequently visits Nigeria, giving her a more trenchant insight into what is going on at home. She, along with her husband, otherwise known as my uncle, had been close to my father when he was alive. After returning from a two-week sojourn to Amaigbo, Nigeria, Rachel called my Mom. The two of them spoke in the Igbo language, conferring animatedly about salient issues affecting the community.
Shortly after ending the call with Rachel, Mom sought me out, repeatedly calling my name as she gingerly walked up the stairs. I was sitting in front of the computer, eagerly scrolling through news websites, all aflame with news of Donald Trump’s most recent indictment.
I turned to my mother and said, “I’m right here momma.”
As Mom approached, she relayed information from the phone call to me, a monolinguist, in the Igbo language, a benign mistake that is becoming more frequent with time.
“Can you say that again, Mom?” I asked. “I could not understand you.”
Mom sat on the bed behind me, and said in Igbo, “Rachel talked to me about the house your daddy was building in Amaigbo.”
“Mom, I still can’t understand what you are saying,” I said, turning the black swivel chair until I was facing her.
Mom smiled and said, “I’m sorry my dear. I forgot that you don’t know very much Igbo.”
“That’s okay. You said that Rachel talked to you about Daddy’s house?”
“Yes, my dear. We need to finish the house, the one your father is building at home.”
“I know, momma. I just don’t know if it can be done. They’ve been “building” that damn house for a few decades now. I mean, Dad started building that house in the freaking eighties.” My temples were suddenly flaming. “That is not right, momma. Not right at all.”
“You are right,” said Mom, as she nodded. “It is wrong for his house not to have been built by now. But your Aunt Rachel said that our people are walking by that house and talking. “Why isn’t Dee Peter’s house finished?” is what they are saying. My dear, we need to complete that house as soon as possible. Your father can’t be the only one without a finished house.”
I heaved a sigh, knowing that one of the solemn vows I’d taken so many years ago was about to be broken in less than a few minutes. “What are we going to do?”
“Are you angry, my dear?” asked Mom.
“I am kind of angry, but I can get over it.”
“Good,” said Mom. She pushed herself from the bed and began her approach. She walked with a slight limp, a consequence of debilitating arthritis of the knee. She is seventy now, about the same age as my dad when he passed away. I pray that she has another twenty years left in her. “You and I will work together to get the money to your cousin Chiddi. He will make sure that the money is put toward the construction of the house.”
“Oh. I do like Chiddi. Still, how do we make sure that the money is used the right way?”
“We will send the money in increments. Your cousin will send us photos every time a part of the house is finished. That will let us know that things are going as they should.”
“Okay. What about the basement of this house?”
Mother’s face fell as the realization hit her. Her dream of a new basement would have to be deferred, perhaps permanently. I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay, Momma?” I asked.
“Your father’s legacy is the most important,” said Mom. “That is what we need to focus on at this moment.”
“Alright, momma.”
***
As a client services manager at a cashed-strapped non-profit hospital, I have become comfortable with performing duties outside of my usual purview, gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the organization. Over ten years, I’ve worked in tuberculosis and COVID-19 labs as a specimen processor, taught employees about diversity and inclusion with human resources, and assisted young students with reading and writing. Currently, I am spending an increased amount of time in the phlebotomy area, where I check in hospital patients for blood draws.
As I work to complete my shift in the phlebotomy department, I sit next to Elena, one of the two scheduling agents in charge of booking hospital appointments for patients. She is relatively young at age forty-three, but with two college-aged children. She and I chat with each other during lulls of patient traffic. On a recent afternoon, she initiated a conversation about family and ancestral homes, turning to me and saying that she was traveling to Mexico for the Christmas holiday. Elena and her family travel to Mexico every holiday season. She can recount many happy memories, and smiles as she does so.
“We Nigerians do the same thing,” I said crossing my arms. “I know a lot of people that are going back to Nigeria for the whole of December.”
“You’re from Nigeria?” asked Elena.
“I’m not exactly from there,” I said. “I was born and raised in Colorado. My parents immigrated here in ’75, then had me a year later. I’m a Nigerian American.”
Elena’s face seemed to brighten. “Are you going to go there this year?”
I shook my head and said, “I am not going there. My family gathers in our house here in Denver and celebrates the holidays together.”
“That sounds nice, too.”
“I think it will be.”
Then Elena and I went silent, nodding our heads as we contemplated what to say next. “I’m building a house in Nigeria,” I said. “We’ve been building it for a while, actually.”
“How long?” asked Elena.
“A few decades, I think,” I said.
Elena’s mouth fell. “A few decades?”
“I know. It’s a freaking shit show. We’ve been sending money home to build that place for years and years. We’ve been making more progress recently because people have become more committed since my dad passed away. But I don’t know when it’s going to happen. Hopefully, soon,” I said, sighing.
“That’s one of the things about being an immigrant,” said Elena. “It takes a long time to build houses in your homeland. My dad had that same problem until he went back to Mexico and stayed a while. His house got built fast.”
“The same thing happened with some other Nigerians I know. They went back home to make sure their houses were built.”
“You may have to go there,” Elena said.
Ten years ago, as I sat at my father’s bedside, he said the same thing as Elena: “You may have to go there”. I didn’t know why he said those words then, however, ten years later, I realized that he thought it was likely that he might die. As his eldest and only son, his responsibilities fall upon me. That house will finally be built when I show my commitment to my dad’s legacy, which will require that I make my presence felt by my people.
I think a holiday trip to Nigeria is a good start.