Nwanyioma's Journal

It's funny how things change...people change...thoughts/feelings change....

When Levi died (9/05) we had been divorced for about 8 years. His family wanted Ikenna and me to attend the burial. I wasn't pushing to make it happen for several reasons....I wasn't eager to make the long trip, I didn't want Ikenna's next trip to Nigeria to be such a sad one; it was going to be over final exam time for Ikenna and the school would not let him take his exams early, the cost of the tickets wasn't really in my budget (although Levi's brothers on the East Coast offered to buy our tickets) and I was madly in love with Mark..our romance was relatively new and I didn't want to leave him....and it would mean being away from home for Christmas.  It was Ikenna's school schedule that caused Levi's family to not force the issue. And we said we'd do our best to be in Nigeria when the family marked the one year anniversary of Levi's burial. It was easy for me to say that then....but as the year wore on, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  It was around the Spring of last year when Godwin started talking to me about the importance of making sure that Levi's property be preserved for Ikenna so that when he is of age he can decide if he either wants to keep it or give it away. Godwin told me (over the phone) that he wanted to make sure that we did everything we needed to do so that Ikenna would be in a position to make his own decision at the proper time.

 

I agreed with him, but I still wasn't 100 percent mentally committed to the idea of traveling to Nigeria. Godwin and Rhoda wanted to discuss it in person. Knowing I have standby flight privileges on American, they suggested Ikenna and I come to Connecticut and spend a weekend with them. When I didn't seem to get that going in a timely fashion, they decided to come here and visit us. They hadn't see our new home and they hadn't visited us here since Ikenna was a baby. So they bought tickets and flew out in September. It was during their visit that Godwin had told me that the Eze had said he wanted Ikenna brought to his palace so that he could meet his friend Levi's son and be a part of the transfer of property. The Eze told Godwin that he wanted to tape Ikenna's visit with him so that Ikenna could have it as a keep sake. That's when I knew I had to put aside any anxiety I had about making the trip because it really wasn't about me, it was all about Ikenna. In the beginning I didn't care much about a house and land in Nigeria because Ikenna and I don't live there and aren't ever likely to go there often...but again it wasn't about me, it was about Ikenna....his future.....his heritage and what he might want to do in the future. That land has been in his father's family for generations and if he chooses, it will be something that Ikenna can pass on to his children.

 

We started checking online while they were here and couldn't find any reasonably prices. So Rhoda (who is retired) got busy looking for good prices on the tickets when they flew back to Connecticut. We were planning everything around Ikenna's school Christmas break. When she called me a few days after they flew home to say she had found a good deal on Air France, she booked the reservation and surprised me by saying she and Godwin would pay for them because they wanted to make things easy for us. That as a wonderful unexpected surprise and it was the moment that I knew that the trip was meant to be and that I no longer had any reason to worry.

 

Over the course of the next few months I realized that I would still incur considerable expenses obtaining passports, visas, immunizations and things we would need to travel with. Over the last 30 years working in the airline industry, 98 percent of my trips have been using my standby perks. So I'm used to traveling cheap. The cost of this trip for the two of us (tickets..passports and all) was over $5,000.00. Thank goodness we didn't have any hotel expenses!  I always think of something exotic or extravagant for that kind of money...a trip to some tropical island or a cruise Up until the day we left Ikenna wasn't thrilled about spending all but 2 days of his Christmas vacation away from home....away from his buddies. I honestly almost called Nigeria the morning we were leaving to say we weren't coming. That would have been a huge mistake. The fact that we would leave our house around noon on December 19th and not actually reach the village until sometime on the afternoon of the 21st (long flights and long lay overs) was mentally exhausting, but we knew we had to do it. Ikenna went straight from school to the airport..he got out of school at 10:30am on December 19th and we left for the airport at 12:30! When we got to the village and received all of the love and joy of everyone who came to greet us, it was all so worth it.

Yep it's funny how things change....lots of the reasons I hadn't wanted to travel the previous year were still the same...long trip, there was still some sadness associated with it (the memorial service) and although there was no longer a romance between me and Mark we've still been talking on the phone every day and I truly wondered how I was going to deal with being out of touch with him....but we certainly knew that at $3.49 a minute, we weren't going to be talking while I was away. He did try to call me a few times, but my cell phone didn't work in the village and I hadn't given him Rhoda and Godwin's phone number.....even if I had, that phone network over there is very unreliable...probably because they just don't have enough towers.  I was thrilled when I got to Paris and found I had 5 messages from Mark...trying to call. My phone worked in Lagos but we were only there the night of the 20th and he didn't try to start calling until Christmas day I actually think that two week separation was good for us   We've resumed our multiple daily phone conversations. I cancelled a lunch date with him last week because of my cold (I didn't want to give it to him) and we have a date to see a play on March 22nd! And it looks like he'll be passing through here tonight and he asked me to meet him for a late night dinner. There was a time when I swore he was trying not to see me face to face..but since I got back, this is the third time he's tried to get together.....I'm loving this......usually when he's in town, he's at their depot which is 50 miles away. But he has a delivery nearby and he and his trainee will be spending the night at a truck stop very close to my house. So we'll be meeting at the IHOP at the truck stop.....I have no idea where we're going with our 'relationship' but it's been working well as a very dear friendship.

OK I guess because this turned out to be about me and Mark is why I didn't put this entry in my Nigeria journal.