Transitioned: 20 July 2025. Burial: 3 January 2026
‘Ifunanya, daddy anwuola’
was the first announcement of your death, through Newman
a memory that still sends shivers down my spine whenever I try not to think about it.
Those words, marked by shock, disbelief, trepidation, and fear,
sent me into a wave of numbness I have not recovered from.
My heart is pounding as I write this.
I lean into the Igbo understanding of death,
searching for anything that tells me
that you are still here.
Daddy,
you have returned to the earth.
You are in the wind, the sun,
the rain splattering over my face.
You are in the air I breathe,
the books I read,
and the dreams I accomplish.
I didn’t realise what I had been missing until you transitioned.
I want to do everything ‘right’ now — but it is too late,
too late to do right by you.
Chizoba said you’ve transitioned into a form we cannot explain.
She told me to look at nature
and draw courage from there.
Autumn, fall, winter, summer
are all changing seasons.
Trees, pollination, insects, rivers, birds
how do we account for all of these?
Do I know more than my father’s chi?
My dad was only human.
How did I never once imagine you could collapse?
Because you were my dad.
Because you were always there
sturdy, steady
I didn’t see you could break.
I remember the feeling I had
as I stepped my feet into our compound at Ofufe
after seeing you in the mortuary.
Mawuu said a parent’s death
yanks the ground from beneath one’s feet.
You were not there to welcome us.
Home no longer feels like home.
The sound I heard when I tried
to move one foot in front of the other
was the sound of the ground beneath me
crumbling away.
How can I not feel like a stranger
in my father’s house
when the earth beneath me has been yanked off?
Shalvah said loss is the accompaniment of love
that it is better to love and lose
than to never love at all.
Now I understand why people want to go first,
so they never have to bear the heartache
of losing the ones they love.
Wouldn’t it be easier
never to have known you at all
than to feel this pounding ache?
But perhaps that’s what Amakanwa meant
when she said, ‘to love with our whole being,
to give and receive love in all its splendour
and then to mourn it when it’s taken from us
seems to be part of our fate
in this incarnation.’
I look for you in many things.
And if I dared to imagine
that I might reflect your essence,
then on the days I look into the mirror
and see even a glimpse of you,
I realise I am my father’s daughter.
I lean into that feeling
still wondering why it took me
so long to recognise your face in mine.
May the Almighty God receive your gentle soul,
May the light of your spirit never fade.
May you find rest where there is no pain,
no burden,
no sorrow.
And when the time comes
for souls to return again,
in forms we may not fully understand,
may you come back renewed,
whole,
and surrounded by love.
May your journey beyond this world be gentle and full of light,
and may your memory continue to guide us.
Amen.
— Ifunanya Okolie,
Always, your daughter.
The winged time traveller 