I just can't forget the blue shade of her bedsheets the first time we FaceTimed. It was a Sunday morning in Nigeria, but in her city, Toronto it was midnight. Although I had plans of being in church that morning, her sleepy smiley face had an effect on me that I had never experienced before.
"Don't you think you should go to bed and I should be heading to church?" I asked softly.
She let out a painful groan. "I know. But my hands feel so heavy to hang up now." She replied with a smile., wrapping her blue scarf around her neck for the third time.
There was an awkward silence between us as we both stared at each other with something heavy but beautiful in our eyes.
I had met Elise as a colleague while on a Zoom meeting on a remote Job we both did for UNICEF. We had worked together on a project in which she was the team leader. It wasn't long before our friendship blossomed into something different but pure.
Elise wasn't like every other girl I've dated. She was different. A humanitarian worker with a different fire and tears in her eyes. And when she spoke of the sick kids in Africa her voice was filled with a different kind of hope
The first time I heard her laugh, it was soft like the rain. Her dream was that one day she would touch the red soil, to feel what I felt, to help the children I talked about in my village clinic, and also get to know me better.
I remember teasing her all the time. "One mosquito bite and you'll run back to Canada."
She'd laugh and say, "Then I'll stay long enough to get bitten twice."
"Don't worry. I'll make sure to protect you. At least it'll give me more time with you." I said.
She blushed. Looked at me through the phone. "Do you ever lack the sweet words to say?"
"I guess you make it too easy for me."
Gradually, we grew into something romantic and strong on all levels. We talked every day. Every day.
Until she didn’t reply to me anymore.
I'd sit by my window with my phone, hoping and praying she would reply to every text I'd sent her. Hoping and wishing she'd pick up my calls. For weeks, running into months. I woke up every day with a different kind of prayer.
''If she didn't want to talk to me anymore at least she should tell me over a text.'' I'll complain to my friend.
It lingered on till I decided to key into my pride and stopped calling or texting her after three months. Deleted her contact one lonely Saturday evening with shaking hands. I didn’t want to look like the desperate guy who couldn’t handle ghosting. But deep down it didn’t feel like ghosting. It was different because every message I sent to her on WhatsApp was left Unread.
I made myself believe she had moved on. Maybe the fire burned out. Maybe I was the one imagining a life with her. Maybe I wasn’t enough. Maybe she wasn't really into me.
That latter hurt me the most.
I tried healing by throwing myself deep into work. I worked till late into the night. Getting myself tired with work so that once I throw myself into bed I'll doze off. But the more I tried, the more a part of me waited for her call. Waking up every morning and staring at my phone for a message I knew wouldn’t come.
Then, one Tuesday afternoon, while I punched through my system. I got a message from her number.
My hands froze. My phone felt heavy. I quickly wiped my eyes to be sure it was her. And staring back at me was her number. But the message wasn't from her, it was from her sister.
“Hello. This is Elise’s sister. I found your number in her phone. I thought you should know, Elise passed away two months ago. She had leukemia. She didn’t want anyone to know. She kept saying she didn’t want pity. Just love. I’m sorry.”
I remember staring at my phone like it wasn't mine. Like I had picked the wrong phone at a pub. I read it over five times just to be sure. I felt my head spin and the world go silent. I tried to stand up but I couldn’t feel my legs. I slumped to the cold tile floor with my mind drifting into space.
"Leukemia? How? She knew and didn’t tell me?" So many questions ran through my mind but there was no one to answer them.
Then it began to make sense, the unread messages, the never returned calls, the silence that wasn’t cruelty but pain. She wasn’t running away from me. She was fading.
I cried like a man who had lost someone real. Because I had. Elsie, though miles away, became a huge part of my life.
Her face and voice haunted me that night. “One day, I’ll trade this white earth for your red earth.” she would always say to me. "Then I'll save as many sick children as I can in Africa."
I woke up the next morning with a mission in my heart.
"I'm going to Europe," I said to my friend over the phone.
"What for dude?"
"To pay my last respect."
There was silence from the other end of the phone. I knew he might be thinking that I was crazy. Maybe I was but I knew I had to go. Not just for her. For myself. To find that peace I crave.
Six months of saving and endless embassy appointments, I finally got the visa to fly to Toronto. I had informed Elise's sister earlier of my coming so she met me at the airport with Elise’s scarf and a letter from Elise in her hand. The exact one she wore in that first video call. I pressed it to my face like it would bring her back. But it didn’t. I threw it around my neck.
I opened the letter and read.
"Dear Michael,
If you're reading this, then it means I've left for a better place. A place without pain. I'm sorry you got to know this way and I'm sorry I never got to tell you how I love you while I was still alive. I thought it was of no use since I was going to leave this world soon. Keep being that kind man I fell in love with. The world needs it.
Elise."
Together with her sister, I visited her gravesite. No grand speeches. Just silence. I whispered,
“You never made it to Africa, Elise. But I'll make sure Africa remembers you.”
Now, I run a foundation in her name "The Elise Hope Project". A foundation for children with chronic illness in rural Nigeria. We don't just treat, we feed, we teach. Every room has her picture. And every bed has a look-alike of her blue bedsheet. Our parting gift for cured kids was a replica of the exact scarf Elise had worn on our call.
Elise's death left me a different man. Maybe she left me unread for months. But definitely not unloved.
And every time I hear a child laugh in joy and not pain in that clinic. It feels like Elise was smiling down at me from heaven for a job well done.