I first met Abi in September of 1993, my best mate Jide had asked me to look in on a love interest he had in the UK whilst on holiday. He’d gushed about her all summer and wouldn’t let up, so we were all interested in finding out who this special someone was.
Abi visited with my family and I, was well behaved, well-spoken and good mannered and so impressive, my hard to please dad was enthralled by her, a report I passed on to Jide, much to his satisfaction
So, there I was aiming to impress and look good for team Jide, shirt all tucked in, hair well combed, jeans neatly pressed. All the Sunday best antics firmly in place, in today’s words ‘feeling myself’, noone heard when she said to me, ‘ehn brother, I know this is queens country, but we don’t do tucking in here like that oo, relax, because next thing now you’ll be asking for suspenders and bow tie’, at which point we both burst into laughter, and with that the ice was broken and I was at ease.
Abi had such wit and the gift of the gab, with which she controlled situations expertly
Fast forward 6yrs later to 1999, it’s the night before Abi and Jide’s wedding and she says to me ‘Mr best-man, make sure you get him to church on time’. You can then only imagine my trepidation and fear when she herself was late to the wedding ceremony by over an hour, ‘again no-one heard when she leaned over sometime during the service, smirked and said ‘worried for all the wrong reasons, are we’?
When Abi fell ill and Jide told me, I travelled down to reassure the family and lend support, but Jide and I didn’t know how Abi would react because it was early days, so I pretended as if I only came to visit, she must have had quite a laugh at our dilemma, only to say just before my departure, ‘you don’t need to tiptoe around me, I know you know, just pray with us’.
All through the Journey, she looked only on the brighter side, and never stopped believing, never stopped praying and never stopped praising…. Even now I can see her looking down, smiling and checking us all out, I suspect she’d have quite a bit to say.
Abi was a doting mother and loving wife, caring friend, she would readily sacrifice for others, giving freely, truly committed to seeing people excel and be the best they could be.
I know beyond Jide and the children, beyond the immediate family, or close friends, everyone who was touched by Abi, who knew her or encountered her mourns this loss.
Rest well Abimbola
Dayo