I found a picture of my father today. He was 14 and he wore khaki shorts paired with a white shirt that hung twice his size, complete with an oversized cap.. He had a comb stuck in his hair and he had a mischievous grin on his face. I asked him what the story behind the picture was and he told me he had just returned back to the house after sneaking out to watch Nigeria’s 1980 nations cup next door. His Uncle caught him in the act. He told me the picture was taken on a celluloid film. 

My favorite picture of my father was taken when he was 7. He stood in a garden filled with purple Bougainvilleas. He wore a blue Agbada with a matching cap. The fusion of purple and blue created an ambience where it seemed nothing could die. This little boy brought ideas to life seamlessly. He stood there with his chipped tooth and a visibly melting ice cream cone in his hands.

I asked my father what drew him to my mother and he said her unwillingness to be tamed. He liked that she was fierce and was stubborn. He liked that he didn’t have to pretend to be someone else when he was with her. He was that way too. She was his reflection.

My mother has been in Coma for 198 days. Each day, my father would sing to her. It was Cyndi Lauper’s Time after time. It was their favorite song. My father said the first day he heard that song, was the day he met my mother. He had gone to visit his friend and when he got to the house, there was a girl that kept singing loudly with her crooked voice. She was his friend’s cousin who had come to live with them. They tried to bully her into keeping quiet and she smacked his friend so hard and said, “ You can’t bully me because I’m a woman. I beat up boys for a living”. They were too stunned to speak and she went about her business. After he got back home, he couldn’t shake off the memory. He had to learn the song to sing it with her. Two crooked voices against the world.

When I was 10, I beat up a boy in my class. He stole my pen and when I tried to ask for it back, he hit me. I hit him back. The school called my parents to report the case and my dad told them I did the right thing. Everyone said I was a spoilt child. 

My parents got matching tattoos when they clocked 50. They said it was going to serve as a reminder of their love if anything ever happened and they could not remember who the other person was. Everyone thought they were crazy but they did it anyway. They had gotten used to being crazy. Crazy had become their middle name.

When my mother wakes up, she’d not remember my father. She’d not remember us due to her pre-existing dementia. She’d not remember us but she’d see “Abebi loves Akanni” written on her wrist. She’d know that she loved someone and someone loved her. When she sees my father, she’d see “Akanni loves Abebi” etched on his wrist. She’d know that’s her Akanni.

I sit here in a tattoo shop, about to receive my first tattoo. It will read, “Akanni and Abebi forever.” If ever I forget my roots, I’ll look at this ink and remember that I am the daughter of that chipped-toothed young boy and the girl with the crooked voice. I am my parents’ child, bound to them till the very end.