TRIBUTE TO AMY’S PARAGON
I have battled with writing this tribute because the hard fact of actually writing a tribute in honour of Chukwumeka Paragon Ezechukwu Nnodimele is surreal and most unwelcome.
Emeka Nnodimele came into my orbit in December 1999. I was posted to Rivers State for the mandatory NYSC program and upon arrival in camp at Ndele and all registration protocols duly observed, I was assigned a room which I shared with three other young ladies, one of whom just happened to be beautiful, vivacious, fair-skinned Lilian Amarachi Okeiyi (as she then was). A fast friendship was formed and two decades later (and counting), we still claim and own that friendship. It was not too long thereafter that Emeka’s name started cropping up with regularity in conversations and we’d all giggle with all the hilarity young, bright-eyed, fresh graduates are capable of.
In due course, we met Amy’s “Dede Para”, a vibrant young man with sweet eyes, who was then working at CTL Communications and who was so unashamedly smitten with my friend. I have not forgotten those numerous rides in his yellow Mercedes Benz car (the car he was driving at the time) and how we teased him mercilessly about he would patiently wait for Amy “under the sun and in the rain” as it were. I remember how he would often tell me: “your friend just dey do shakara anyhow, she know no say na me be her last Bus Stop” and we’d fall over laughing and Amy would studiously ignore us; but he was right. The service year ended in December 2000 and we all trooped to Amy’s village and her father’s house and Miss Lilian Amarachi Okeiyi became Mrs. Lilian Amarachi Emeka Nnodimele.
According to the order of life, we all settled down into adulthood with its myriad obligations and vagaries and raising our respective families. We kept in touch fully as they moved to Lagos and came back to Port Harcourt years later.
To say that news of Dede Para’s demise came as the rudest of shocks would be a gross understatement. It took a little to wrap my head around it (not really sure how successfully done). A silent video reel of 22 years worth of memories has been playing on repeat in my head. I was simply incapable of making an entry in the Condolence Register opened in their home. It was beyond me. So many questions left unanswered, so many “what ifs” pondered upon.
No one is perfect, we are all flawed; but one thing I know for sure is that Emeka loved his wife, Amy and loved so dearly the family that God almighty blessed them with. He gave his all for them.
Thank you Dede Para for loving my friend Amy so well for 22 years and for being her friend as well as the king of her heart;
Thank you for joining life forces with Amy and blessing the lineage of Nnodimele with the indescribably precious gifts of Chidera, Chidubem, Ebube and Princess Sharon;
Thank you for being a worthy example for your children;
Thank you for being you. I am glad we met on this often-perplexing journey of life.
Rest in peace in the ever-loving arms of our God.
Travel safe Dede Para !!!
Barrister Nnenna Okoroafor