The Weight of 'I'm Sorry'
Before I go straight to what I have to talk about today, I’d like to share a story with you. I had this buddy in secondary school. He was my senior in every sense of the word: age-wise, class-wise, and knowledge-wise, so I respected him like I would any senior. One day, while we were studying together, he asked me to stop calling his name with any title, just plain ‘Paul’. It didn’t sit well with me, so I asked again to be sure I heard him right, and he confirmed it. The African child in me, specifically the Nigerian child, couldn’t come to terms with that because we treat respect for elders as a big deal, even if it’s just a one-year gap. And here I was, before a senior, asking me not to call him ‘Senior’ or ‘Uncle’. It sounded weird. I tried calling the name without any title, and it felt so awkward. I felt this heaviness in my mouth whenever I tried to pronounce just the name. Mind you, that’s also my dad’s name, so you get the awkward feeling, right? As if I were calling my d...