If you’ve noticed, I don’t alway write at the end of the month, and sometimes at the beginning, too. I like to break routine. It is very easy to take things for granted in robotic rituals. 

Well, happy November! ^_^  

Time, seemingly a wallpaper is yet again the center of attention. 

2015 has almost expired. 

Of course, I panicked and started going over my resolution list. I didn’t accomplish some things I had hoped to, but I did accomplish my biggest resolution of the year. This means PARTY! Party is a nice bowl of yogurt with all my favorite fruits and my homemade coconut-honey granola. If I can afford it, maybe an off-off-broadway play or something. But I am delaying the party until looking forward to it is no longer enjoyable. 

Ah, but you must wonder about my Nana’s best friend. It is, after all, the title of this post.

Paafio is dead. 

Paafio, was what he responded to. The name translates to little father, but also means uncle––one’s father’s or mother’s younger brother. 

Among Nana’s friends, Paafio was my favorite. He had this voice that always sounded uncertain and he looked at you sideways with huge eyes. He was a very skinny, athletic looking man, who stooped a little and made me imagine his being about to collapse on me as a child. Throughout the years I have marveled at how everyone seemed to age, but never Paafio. 

Paafio’s real name is Doetse. Doetse is named to a boy born after twins. He had no children, nor did he ever marry. He was quite and not very social; an introvert. He was one of the kindest men I knew. In recent years Mother and I complain about how much Nana took advantage of his nature. He was always so eager to please her. I think he loved her very much. A few years younger than Nana, though I do not know exactly how many years younger,  he always called her, Sister. With a beautiful emphasis, Sister. I can hear it now in his soft voice and the particular accompanied look in his gentle eyes.

As I watched my dearest Grandmother age, I begun to wonder what would happen to Paafio when she leaves. Surely he would miss her the most, since the two of them are so inseparable. Always talking about everything, gossiping about everything, teasing each other, laughing at things only they knew. His name, always on Nana’s lips: Paafio this, Doetse that! He looked stronger next to Nana whom the years have doubled over. But he walked a little slower than he used to, and age colored all of his short cropped hair gray. He seemed very solid, wearing his sheepish grin like life was a laugh. 

I would have bet my last penny on Paafio living longer. So I worried about Nana. Hearing her complaints about body pains, being sorry that she could no longer eat her favorite dishes: all of those dishes being mine as well, I can imagine her pain. Old age has not been especially kind to her, yet we laugh about it; I call her young lady which never ceases to crack her up. But there was always Paafio, also a little old. I thought of him as her playmate. One never goes between them, even when they argue. They had a way of taking each other’s side against everyone else.

He had a stroke on a regular afternoon: he was dizzy and went home to rest, then they found him on his mat in a terrible state and rushed him to the hospital. Paafio was reduced to his endearing sheepish grin. His people took him to their village to cure him with traditional medicine. Mother got to see him in his last days when she visited Ghana. The news came, almost two weeks ago, that Paafio has died. 

How does one appear so healthy in one minute and loses his health in the next? How strange this life is. How uncertain all is. How deceptive all feels. 

It is strange that Paafio is no more. So strange to think that if I search the entire planet, I will find people who would remind me of him or who might even look a little like him; maybe someone with his eyes; another with a voice almost like his soft one; or someone with his particular interesting head shape and big ears; or maybe his lanky build; but never that same dear Paafio, I love. Like the days that have slipped us by; like the sweet and sour moments once our present, Doetse is memory now. Only real in my imagination.

I write this in celebration of a life that touched mine. I have a bad habit of forgetting. I want to remember my gentle old man. A beautiful being that once breathed in this sphere. A body that was once an infant, a little boy, a teenager, a young man, an adult, and an old gentleman. A spirit that always brought to my mind gentility and kindness; the pleasure of service and genuine friendship. He was, in a sense, more father to me than my very own ever was. He was the only grandfather I have ever had. And by living the way he did, he taught me something about a lifestyle that I have come to admire. 

Goodbye dearest, Paafio. The fearful beatings of my living heart reaches out to your rotting one. But my soul knows yours as free. You have blessed my existence in ways I cannot form into words. I hope it is beautiful where you are. That it is peaceful and finally enough.
—
J. A. Odartey