Harry Potter inspired memories...

Update on my collection: 2 down, 5 to go. I found yet another hardback for 99c…dreams can come true. Yes we can baby! :-)

But this post isn’t about that…
Apart from the fact that I’m such a huge HP fan and I truly enjoy reading the books, Harry Potter is one of the things that makes me think of of Ken. I very vividly remember the day I started Uni in Naija, fresh and fly jambito I was. I was set with my hair looking good, a cute outfit and a hardback Harry Potter novel in my hand. You know how the first day of school be, no lecturer was going to be teaching anything for the first week or 2 but people went on campus to register and kiki it up with friends…which was pretty much what I was going to do.My sister who is like my second mommy and has always looked out for me, gave me the once over to ensure that her lil sis wasn’t going to go and disgrace her on campus and observed my Harry Potter book. She said ‘Aha, you have your Harry Potter…correct girl. Now any guy who asks you about it or says that he wants to read it after you is probably a correct guy who knows what’s up…’ Hehehehe, gotta love my sister o jare! She always brings it with the good advice. I took note of what she said, and I was off to school.

Like I anticipated, there were no classes and day #1 involved a whole lot of standing in line to register. When I was done, I hopped on an Okada and went to meet up with a friend of mine who was at her boyfriend’s house…and that is where I met Ken. One of the first things he said as soon as we were introduced was… ‘Oh you have that HP, can I read it after you?’ and I remembered my sister’s words of advice and smiled. But all wasn’t instantly gravy between Ken and I…I mean dude was kinda sweating me hard and I could tell, so me being the fronting, shakara making jambito that I was proceeded to make shakara for dear ol’ Ken.

When I was finished with the bubbling, I went home to gist my sister of how my first day of Uni was. The funny thing was that she happened to be at home with her really good friend Karen; who unknown to me was Ken’s sister. So I walked into my house and sister dearest and Karen wanted to know how school was, and which guys toasted me etc etc so you know I was in there running my mouth about this dude named Ken who was sweating me hard but I just wasn’t feeling him, I even added small jara for them sef…LMAO. After I don nack the tori finish, my sister and Karen looked at each other and burst out laughing. I was confused… ‘Did I say something wrong’, ‘what is so funny’ and in between giggles my sister told me that Ken was Karen’s brother. Jesu! I just wished that the floor would open up and swallow me…like dag. Talk about set up! I begged Karen not to tell Ken what I said and she promised not to, but na beans? Karen definitely told her brother because after that I would run into Ken on campus and he would seriously bone my side ehn! I mean, I felt kinda bad and even suddenly started to think he was kinda sexy but ah well, it was what it was. Ish happens…

Fastforward 2 years later
One day, I got a random call from a random area code and I picked up out of curiosity. It was Ken on the phone…he had just moved to this end and my sister gave him my #. It was so weird, yet funny…we really caught up on gist and even talked about our first encounter. He said he had written me off as one of those childish jambito babes. LMAO…
From that day on, we talked like almost every day and got to be very close. We even started to make plans to meet up, as we expressed a mutual interest in each other. I mean, Ken was like a comfort zone to me…I could talk about everything and anything and he was always willing to listen.
But seriously folk, is it that all good things must come to an end? Because, in this case…it did. You see, Ken had come to these parts for medical reasons and somewhere along the line when we all thought that all was well with him, and he was going to be okay, move on with his life and get started with his hopes, dreams and ambitions…things just went downhill in a serious way and just like that, my dearest Ken was gone.

It was a heartbreaking loss to everyone…his family, his friends, me…everyone! And the last thing that I could do out of respect to him was to go for his burial. How sad that we never quite got a chance to visit each other as planned and when I finally entered his hood, it was to wish him goodbye for the very last time…
I still think of him, and apart from Harry Potter, there are a bunch of very random little things that remind me of him. He was such a HUGE fan of the rapper Nas. When Nas and Jay-Z finally settled their beef, I thought ‘Dag! Ken would have loved to see this’ …just things like that.

He is truly missed and I pray that his soul continues to rest in perfect, perfect peace.
Amen.