Ọmọ London: Jide

Long long ago, there lived a boy born to royal parents. He was destined to one day be king, his father was king, and his mother was his father’s sibling. But unlike the offspring of the Lannister siblings of Game of Thrones, who were all born void of defects and deformities, this child was born with several health issues. Physically disabled, he would require the use of a cane for the entirety of his life. He was also born with a cleft palate, scoliosis and would suffer from malaria several times over the course of his life.

Between the ages of eight and nine, the boy became king and he would reign for 9 years. He died of an illness, at first many presumed the illness to be malaria, but later, it was discovered that his death was caused by a blood disorder he inherited from his parents. A deformity known as sickle cell disease.

In the land the boy-king was from, their monarchs are called ‘pharaohs’. The pharaoh I speak of, is none other than Tutankhamun.

I get the ball from my teammate and look up at the field to see what I can do. Not much. I settle on a quick one-two. I pass the ball to Kunle and move forward, hoping that Kunle will return the ball to me and complete the manoeuvre. He does, in doing so I become open on goal with another teammate, all I have to do is pass the ball and he can simply tap it into what was an open goal. If I went for goal myself and miss, I will be slaughtered. I pass the ball to my teammate; he hits the ball first time and the ball goes wide. He misses an open goal.

“JIDE”!! I scream, hands on my head in despair. I look around, my other teammates have similar expressions on their faces. Charlie, one of the boys on my team, gives me a look as if to say, “I told you so”.

I walk up to Jide, he holds his hands up in apology and offers me a sheepish grin. I feel guilty for reacting the way I did when he missed the chance.

“It is fine” I say, “next time, just look up before you do anything”.

“There will be a next time”? says Jide, “you’re the only one passing the ball to me”.

I confess, the lad had a point. Charlie and the rest of my team weren’t passing the ball to Jide as often as I was, but then again Jide had indeed messed up clear cut chances to score.

Jide lives. After his episode he recovers well enough to take Kaizer (their dog) on walks. I stay away from him whenever he has the dog (whom I likened to the Baskerville hound) with him but on the occasions he does not, I will walk with him and we’d just talk. I don’t see him every day, but when I do, it is always cool. I like him; Jide is kind, his soft-spoken belies his humorous and confident ways and he was like every other kid in the neighbourhood: sometimes he’d piss me off and sometimes I’d piss him off. Oh, and he sometimes shares his snacks with us, not all the time (who shares their snacks all the time?)

By the way, he doesn’t get any better at football.

Tayo though, doesn’t scowl at me as often as he did. He doesn’t smile at me either, but I don’t need a smile from him. Wouldn’t mind one from their sister though. Anyway, I digress. I speak to Tayo every now and then and he even invites me in to see a new game that he had got (Kaizer is locked away for his safety, at least, that is what I tell myself). But yeah, Tayo is cool with me and I am cool with him. He doesn’t talk about Jide’s condition with me but I understand how protective he is of him, I still feel like Jide shouldn’t be babied because he has SCD, but then again, Jide is the last child, so he was always going to be babied by his family, having sickle cell is simply a filler. I am surprised they even let him play football with us in the first place.

If I am being honest, it irks me that sickle cell is called a ‘disease’. I say this because most diseases have cures and sickle cell currently doesn’t have a ‘cure’ in the same way other diseases have. I mean, I have heard of people having bone marrow transplants, but they don’t always work as some people’s bodies reject them. Anyway, if you’re reading this and you have sickle cell, or know someone that does, know that you are not alone. In fact, there is an initiative you can be a part of via Twitter and they even have a Whatsapp group chat. It is called The Sound of Sickle. Their aim is to create awareness and educate people about sickle cell, and create a community for those with the condition. The founder, Chris recently featured in a documentary published by the BBC on their website. It’s a great watch and I implore you to watch it.

The holidays came and went, I went to school and did what students do and soon enough the term was over, and I was back home. The power supply in our area was even more erratic than before, and I spent more time out and about than I usually did. I played football and visited friends and got in trouble with my uncle and gran, standard stuff. Life was good. I didn’t see Jide as often, but I wasn’t too fussed; there was always something keeping me busy. The holidays are a blur to me now, with only a few moments standing out, and this is one of them:  

The darkening skies means its time for us to stop playing. The sky is a mixture of pink and orange, and in a weird way, a dark blue tinge is setting in. That is how I see it anyway. I am sweating buckets and panting profusely, I can feel the heat on my head and all I want to do is jump in the shower and have the cold-water cascade all over me.  When I first got to Nigeria, I always had to wash with hot water, but going to boarding school changed all of that. I didn’t wash for the first three days because I wasn’t a fan of cold water, but after day three, I knew I wanted to be clean and before I knew it, I found myself dousing myself in cold water.

I finish in the bathroom, towel myself dry and put on clean clothes, my dirty clothes get stashed with the rest in a growing pile behind the door. I do a few things for my gran and step out again, this time just to chill with Kunle and his family at their shop, going any farther without telling my family is a straight no. The sun has set but the darkness hasn’t fully set in. I leave our compound and I can sense something is up; the atmosphere just feels off. I ignore it and trot to Kunle’s shop, I greet them all with a smile and it is returned half-heartedly. Ok, something has certainly gone awry. Kunle’s brother doesn’t even acknowledge me, his eyes are fixed on the Big House.

“How you dey”? I ask Kunle. How are you.

“You haven’t heard”? Kunle says back to me in a voice so low it might as well have been a whisper.

“Heard what”?  I ask. Alarm bells go off in my head. I turn to Wale, who is now looking at us, but he averts his gaze from mine.

“Jide” Kunle says to me now, “he is dead”.

The words hit me like a sledgehammer, and I feel a tightness in my chest. I cannot recall what I say next, I know I stay with Kunle and co for a while, but I cannot remember what was said. I just remember the pain. The pain of losing a friend, it is raw and real. Its been over ten years and the pain is still there, sometimes I ask myself why Jide died, sometimes I ask God. Jide was a kind soul, he was cool and funny and a pleasure to be with, didn’t cause trouble or start fights. And now he is dead. I felt guilty for the times I had been nasty with him, I felt guilty for the times I had forgot to check on him, even now, typing this, I still feel slightly raw about his passing. Death is a part of life, everybody dies, but death isn’t something you think of at a young age, death seemed like such a far event for me that I never thought it would take Jide so soon. Sometimes I ask God why He takes the good people and leave the bad. It saddens me.

I sometimes wonder how life would have been if Jide was still alive, after his passing the Big House became even quieter than it was before, and less friendly (to us anyway- Barak, a boy who lived in the house next to the Big House, was a popular choice for us whenever we wanted to play football. Whenever the ball went over the fence and into the Big House’s compound, it was always going to be thrown back to us if Jide was home. After his death, there was no one to throw the ball back at us).

Jide was introduced to me as the ‘sickler’, and he became much more to me than that. He is the reason I know what I know about sickle cell, and he is the reason why I want everyone to know about sickle cell, it is imperative that every black person know about it as it directly affects them one way or the other.

So, we have come to the end of this 3-part series, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you take it upon yourself to learn more about sickle cell, and to also get your blood tested. If you’re up for it, donate blood, it is something that black people don’t do enough of in this country, and people with sickle cell often need blood transfusions. Being able to obtain blood from the same ethnic group helps a lot. I will admit that I am yet to do so, because I have a fear of needles, but one day I’ll put on my bad bitch boots and donate blood.

Thank you for reading this, RIP to all those sickle cell has claimed, you aren’t forgotten. More life to those suffering from it, I pray God continues keeping you safe.

Roll safe and stay blessed.