Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is still mourning her father, Professor James Nwoye Adiche, who died on June 10, 2020, at the age of 88.
In a tribute to him posted on Facebook, the renowned author detailed the events leading up to his death.
She also spoke about some of the plans they made for the future.
She spoke of her pain; how she cried for days till her side muscles ached, how she screamed and pounded things, and how much she misses him.
She accompanied her words with a video showing her and her father together at different points in their life.
Professor Adichie, Odelu Ora Abba, was Nigeria’s first professor of Statistics. He studied Mathematics at Ibadan and got his PhD in Statistics from Berkeley.
Mourning him, the Half of a Yellow Sun author wrote:
“And just like that my life has changed forever. June 7, there was Daddy on our weekly family zoom call, talking and laughing. June 8, he felt unwell. Still, when we spoke he was more concerned about my concussion (I’d fallen while playing with my daughter).
“June 9, we spoke briefly, my brother Okey with him. “Ka chi fo,” he said. His last words to me. June 10, he was gone.
“Because I loved my father so much, so fiercely, so tenderly, I always at the back of my mind feared this day. But he was in good health. I thought we had time. I thought it wasn’t yet time. I have come undone. I have screamed, shouted, rolled on the floor, pounded things. I have shut down parts of myself…
“Sleep is the only respite. On waking, the enormity, the finality, strikes – I will never see my father again. Never again. I crash and go under. The urge to run and run, to hide from this. The shallow surface of my mind feels safest because to go deeper is to face unbearable pain. All the tomorrows without him, his wisdom, his grace.
“We talked almost daily. I sent him my travel itineraries. He would text me just before I got on a stage: Ome ife ukwu! Nothing else mattered to me as much as the pride in his eyes.
“I saw him last on March 5th in Abba. I had planned to be back in May. We planned to record his stories of my great grandmother…”
Watch Chimamanda’s video below:
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