To be able to say: I loved this person, we had a hell of a nice time together, it’s over but in a way it will never be over and I do know that I for sure loved this person, to be able to say that and mean it, that’s rare, señor. That’s rare and valuable.”
— Ernest Hemingway —
I've been privileged to meet a lot of interesting personalities, most of which added to my life positively. My friendship with these people usually starts on a mutual or should I say plain note, from which we grow a very strong bond over time. Some weeks back I talked about a friend I met through dèjà vu. Today I will be talking about a friend who I never imagined would become a brother. I have written a little about him before, but I will be giving the full gist in this post.
I met Victor at the same time I met my dèjà vu friend, but I didn't see him anymore as a person even though we were roommates in the school hostel before I moved in with the other guy. During our first two years, victor and I just knew each other but never really talked, if we did, it will be in a gathering of guys, so our relationship was like a plain sleet waiting to be written.
Fast forward to 2021 when ASSU refused to call off the strike, I decided I would just come back to Port Harcourt (Nigeria) and start something doing. So I quit my job in Warri with the hope of starting a life in Port Harcourt. But then I had nowhere to stay, but I had friends who would only allow me to stay but told me I couldn't stay for long and so there was a need to get accommodation as soon as possible.
I wasn't having enough money on me to get accommodation, so I would often move from one friend's house to another until I met with victor again. The night we met, he came to visit my friend who I was squatting, and I came back from work with food that I planned for only two people. Seeing him made me a little upset because I was hungry, and I knew very well the guy I was with was hungry as well as there was no food in the house. Victor also looked hungry, so I knew non of us will be satisfied because we were a bunch of hungry dudes ready to devour food for two.😂
I reluctantly brought out the food and called him to join in, I remember looking at him and getting pissed off as he took every spoon, in the process, I was even trying to eat as fast as I could so he wouldn't eat much 😂. Still, at the end of the day, we all had to drink a lot of water to fill the void in our stomachs. I wasn't happy he was around, but there was nothing I could do.
Later I found out that he came to borrow my friends' laptop for work, a laptop I had already budgeted to work with, but there was another issue; the compound we were staying at had issues with PHCN (Power holding company of Nigeria) so Victor had light in his house, and we didn't. The only option for me then was to follow victor to his house.
On getting to victor's house, we started talking about school and how we were in the hostel, we also talked about how he viewed me and my dèjà vu friend, and how he had so much respect for us while we were in the hostel. From there I casually asked him if he stayed alone, and if he needed a roommate, to which he said yes he stayed alone but didn't need a roommate because his house was really small.
After that night he came back to the house three days later to ask for the laptop again, and eat as well😂. So I followed him home because I still needed to work with it after he was done. It was at that moment he said I could come to stay with him, and not as though I was squatting with him, but as a roommate. He said he wasn't comfortable seeing I hadn't settled down with my accommodation and knew I will really need it. He was already in his final year, so he was just waiting for the strike to be over. For some reason, the Engineering department couldn't graduate that year, so I knew I wouldn't be graduating anytime soon.
Staying with victor was indeed an amazing experience. He was training himself for school, so he was often broke, same was I expect that I had little support. Victor never made me feel he paid the rent and I had to do my part, whenever there was money, we spent it on each other, a time came when I stopped working, and victor started making money, not for once did he make feel he was paying the bills, as a matter of fact, he took it as his responsibility to pay the bills.
But that's not all. After ASSU had called off the strike, victor graduated and decided to go to Lagos. He said since I was staying in the house, there was no need to pack the household items. He gave everything to me including the rent and told the landlord that I was his brother and I will be the one staying in the apartment from henceforth. He went further to pay the rent by six months to give me time to get another job and continue from there. This is a friend that became a brother to me, one I would never forget.
Thanks again for stopping by my blog today, until next time.