Radiant's blog

'Grandma', we called her. The name that brought butterflies to our tummies whenever we heard she was visiting. No doubt we were interested in the sweets and biscuits, but more than that we were interested in the sincere love and care she brought home. We saw it in her eyes, her smile, her gentle touch as she patted our backs one by one and in her gift of Naira notes labelled for each one of us proportionate to our age and level in school. 
Grandma was the meekest person I’ve ever known. She was quiet in spirit. I never heard her complain though there were many reasons to. From mosquitoes that bore through weak bed nets, the beast heat from the east giving more exercise than rest at night, her oatmeal “swallow”-turned-porridge due to someone’s culinary incompetence to pension delays and all what nots.
She was a woman of God. We knew not to knock on her door in the early hours of the morning, but even at times in the afternoon, we met her staring down her glasses on her leather ja…

"Evan". I had never heard that name before. I knew of Eva, but not Evan. I wondered if that was her 'real name' like we say in Nigeria, meaning a name given to her by her parents or like me she had given herself a sweet unpopular name. But more striking than her name at our meeting, was her face. My reaction at first sight of her was, "Who goes about with this much makeup?" She loved to wear very heavy make-up.
We met in church. To be precise, in an audition to join the church choir. So we were divided in two groups for the induction process and fate landed us in the same group. We didn't talk much until after the induction weeks. We were both Soprano so we had to sit together during rehearsals. We enjoyed sitting by each other. I could never have thought that with our first encounter, which didn't leave a good impression, we would hit it off as quickly as we did. 
We became very fond of each other and our relationship extended beyond choir rehearsals…