My godmother's nephew Edwin's first word was NEPA. Typical if you live in a country where the electricity distributors are in charge of raising or bringing down the general mood of an entire neighborhood. He spoke these words at the age of 3 and that was pretty much all he ever said for a long time. He is 14 now and he still doesn't talk much. His younger sister Dubem is the mischief maker; left handed, free spirited, deeply intelligent.

Edwin looks exactly like the Edwin he was named after, he bears a striking resemblance to my godmother: large almond shaped eyes, rimmed by thick long lashes, heart shaped lips, his terracotta skin sprinkled with body hair so brown it looks almost golden. This 14 years old Edwin might resemble the Edwin he is named after, but he is nothing like him. If that Edwin's mother, this Edwin's grandmother, my godmother's mother had waited a few more years, perhaps Dubem would be the one named Edwina. We are sitting in the verandah discussing Dubem's new mischief when my godmother begins to tell the story of Edwin, the one we do not talk about. The one this Edwin is named after- I must have been ten so I do not recall clearly, perhaps I might have been in school and the story has now been retold severally the memory feels like it was mine, but the day this Edwin was brought home, swaddled in a cotton blanket, to visit his grandmother for the first time. Nene took one look at him and began to sing 'Edwin jere agha anata!'. Edwin who went to war has returned!

This story is about that Edwin, the one who laughed in the face of death, the one who volunteered to fight for Biafra when his mates hid beneath their mothers' bossom. The one who never returned from the war. I believe in reincarnation, but I do not think Edwin raised so much dust in his past life only to return meek. That is an aside...

Edwin was active even in the womb, the white doctor who spoke like his nostrils were clogged always told Nene this during her antenatal visits at the community health center "this is a very energetic child" he would say through his nose. Edwin began to set traps for bushmeats before he was a teenager. He never ate meat, but he always brought his kills back home. Edwin was a menace, he would climb hunky mango trees and shake down even the unripe fruits. He once smashed a chameleon's head with a huge stone with a force that left my tiny godmother wailing all the way home. He picked up milipedes only to fling them into the far distance.

Edwin was the one everyone wanted in their team, he climbed the tallest trees, picked cashews and udala the fastest and was ready to fight anyone who offended his friends.

My godmother is an amazing artist and still she said "I cannot even draw, okwa ehh, when you look at Edwin's drawings, it feels like it is about to come out of the paper, eziokwu m!"

Failing in school then was so calamitous the people who failed began to howl from the hill that descended into their respective homes. The day Edwin failed, everyone but him was wailing. Their mothers' thought there was a mass failure, but only Edwin had failed and only him hadn't cried. He would never fail again, he was determined like that.

When his agemates crawled under the bed to hide from being conscripted into the army, Edwin went himself. He just up and left and everyday until less than a decade ago, eyes have been set at the Nkolo- the entrance of the compound in the village, in the hopes that he will eventually turn up.

My godmother lost four of her siblings in a day, their bodies mauled and slammed into hard surfaces and trees and shattered by the enemy's shelling. Nene buried four of her children in one day, years after, she will walk long roads clutching my godmother's tiny hand still crying for them. I imagine her nights were soaked in their tears and blood. She lived to see her hundred and twelfth birthday and she said she only stopped crying so she could live for the rest of her children.

Her heart had been shattered by that shelling, but one day, on one of those long walks with no end, when her tears mixed with sweat, my godmother asked her why she always cried so much, "ilotalu? Do you remember that you used to have four other brothers and sisters, well I am crying because they're no longer here?" My godmother must have been seven, at most eight, the war had just ended, and yet she knew nothing about loss, and so she replied, "ok but if you keep crying, you will get sick and die and leave me all alone." It was those words that calcified Nene's shattered heart. It didn't heal it, there are things that cannot be healed, an eight year old's words fell into her chest like a rock and dried up her tears.

Nene had ten children, four were buried on the same day, one joined to fight a war that was doomed from the start. No one spoke of that one, because what do you say about things you do not know? You cannot speak of the living as though they're dead and you cannot keep hoping the dead will come back to life.

Less than ten years ago, our tongues were finally untied and Edwin's internment was carried out.

A boy, now a man, who had been in that swamp at Portharcourt with him, along with a dozen other boys saw my godmother and his drunken eyes widened.

"You must be Edwin's sister, there is no way you're not" he looked like he was alive for the first time in a long while. Had my godmother been male, he might have believed she was Edwin.

He told my godmother that Edwin laughed in the face of death, that when the Nigerian army caught up with them, they were in between the devil and a swamp. Boys swam and boys drowned and Edwin refused to die in the water. I don't know whether he was shot, my godmother didn't tell us, perhaps the man spared her the details. But I always imagine him laughing hysterically and then charging at them with a bomb seconds from detonating. Edwin lived a short, rambunctious life and I hope he went as gloriously as he lived. I hope he didn't suffer too much.