For my dear, dear friend Lou-Lou.
Louise and I met at St. Joseph’s Convent now St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Brookfields upon our transition from primary to secondary school. She came from Bertha Conton, now Leone Preparatory School and I came from Fourah Bay College School. We had an instant connection and we became friends in Form 1.
Louise had always been wiser than her years and figured out things very quickly. Louise never shied away from challenges in her school work and in life generally. I remember one time we were given an essay to summarize by her aunt Mrs. Palmer (her mother’s sister) who taught us English Language. We had just started ‘building vocabulary’ which Louise felt she had to ace. I remember parts of her summary verbatim as if it was yesterday.
Louise wrote, and I quote (the part I remember clearly); -
“The snake penetrated it’s incisors into the epidermis of the ratel and did not terminate to pugnate …” Saying this to say the snake bit the ratel and they fought… Mrs. Palmer had to read this summary out to the class to encourage us to refrain from using bombastic language like Louise did. Needless to say the class had a good laugh.
I remember when we were in college together, Louise did a holiday job at Shell Company with her dad. She made Le 40 (forty Leones) a month and she managed to squeeze a little something of it for me. I remember one day she was irate telling me how her dad had embarrassed her at work. She claimed his five cents (which was a very small silver coin) had rolled under a mound of cases of Shell products and he had insisted that the workers move all the cases to the side to find his five cents. She said she volunteered to give him the five cents just so the workers wouldn’t have to move that amount of boxes but he was unyielding.
I told her a story my parents told us about Pa Auber. Both our families shared a house at Syke Street when we were toddlers. My father said that the landlord raised their rents to Le. 10 (ten Leones) each apartment. Pa Auber was enraged. He said to my dad “Cyril, can you believe this man raised the rent to ‘two figures’, two figures I tell you…” We had a good laugh. She would tease me about my dad’s pudginess and I about her dad’s stinginess. She would tell me she felt like tripping my dad over and rolling him like a ball down the FBC hills.
Louise was very hard working. When I was staying in the U.S. and would visit home on vacation she would urge me to come back home. She would tell me there was much more to be made here in Sierra Leone than to be made in the U.S. She was right. She was mining in Kono and I admired that she did not play it safe in a nine to five job but had the courage to go up country which was then unfamiliar territory to her and venture into an area mostly attempted only by men - and she made it!
My brother, Michael would tell me that they called her `Bra Louise’ in Kono because she was just as solid as the men. Lou-Lou would not have been the success she turned out to be if she hadn’t risked all the challenges and opportunities that confronted her, like the phenomenal woman that she was.
She had an eye for investing in very lucrative pieces of real estate and I was amazed at the properties she was able to purchase. When it came to buying real property she had her ears to the ground and knew about some of the properties way before they came out on the market.
I was happy when Louise adopted Olabisi. Bisi was her child, her friend, her pal and her joy in this life. I know she will always be close by keeping a watchful eye on her baby. May GOD send his Angels to guide, guard and protect Bisi always.
Louise had an elevated sense of her spirituality. She was always seeking answers to questions of the unworldly. She deeply believed in GOD and practiced her faith with ardent devotion. I would follow her to prayer houses where I would watch in awe her level of devotion. I was the type who went to church because my parents made me. I served at Hill Station Chapel because I enjoyed getting out of the house. We weren’t allowed out much for other reasons. I helped at St. Anthony’s Parish because another friend and I got a chance to sneak some communion wafers taking them from the nun’s place at St. Joseph’s to the church. So Louise’s genuine, zealous devoutness left me in awe of her.
Louise’s efforts to get me to pay closer attention to GOD did not go in vain. For today, I can say in all earnestness that I am a true believer in GOD. There are way too many things that happen in my life that I cannot explain any other way but for the grace of GOD. I serve GOD in a lot of traditional and non-traditional ways and I am at peace doing so.
On my 60th birthday last year in February she attended and we had a pleasant time. She promised to have hers in April. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 lockdown she was unable to do so. She said she would postpone it to her 61st this 2021 but, unfortunately it was not to be. Today, you would have been 61 years old. So, dear friend, wherever you are, know that you are loved and remembered. Happy Birthday Lou-Lou!
When my brother Michael told me he had heard that Louise was sick and had taken a turn for the worst I got frightened and said a quick prayer for her. Only to find out the very next day that she did not make it. I froze in disbelief. There had been an inordinate number of deaths of people I knew and was affiliated with over the past year but Louise's passing was too close to home. I didn’t know how to react. I lay down the whole day numb. I didn’t cry or grieve. I was simply numb. It took me a few days to recover and was able to bring myself to go to the house to sympathize. I also had reservations because it was a Covid-19 passing. I didn’t know what the protocols were and what the risks were so I was hesitant going to sympathize. Nonetheless, I knew there was no way I was not going to sympathize or be at her house paying my last respects.
I noticed that the dress she had on in one of the last photos she took at the last function she attended had the print of the Covid-19 virus on it. As if a vivid forewarning. What a coincidence!
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Goodbye my dearest friend, goodbye. Sleep and take your rest.