Tribute To Andy. The Death of Cool

When is the right time to die?. When your friends can mourn you with pain? Or when your children will celebrate you with pomp?

My high school class buried Andy this week. Yesterday.Andrew Briggs Ikeotuonye. It was , well, one of those experiences that signifies one of life’s passing phases. You never realize the match of time in your life until you bury your high school class mate. And while it’s a painful experience, you realize that this means you will also definitely die. Not may. Must.

Andy in high school was the definition of cool. One of those guys whose every step and action defined teenage definition of cool in all its ramifications. In our generation. His walk. His expressions. His way with his fellow cool guys. I was not one of those cool guys in school. Andy was the one we envied, tried unsuccessfully to be like and resigned ourselves to a fate that we would never be like him.

In addition he was brilliant. That was not really fair. The uncool guys were the bookworms who were compensated with better scores in academics. Andy was also cool with academics. He was therefore a deadly and rare combination for a young teenager. Cool with a doze of academic smartness that kind of set him apart. But he carried it with grace.

We finished high school long time ago . And life caught up with us. Career. Marriage. Children. Our kids have become older than us in high school.

But in our class group on social media and once in a while when we meet physically, we still carried on as the teenagers who graced the Federal Government Okigwe high school in the eighties. Our jokes are still teenagish. We call each other high school names. One of us reminded me recently that it seems some of us never grew out of our teenage years. We did. But we came to our group to be teenagers again. What we said and did here, our kids and spouses would not understand.

And then Andy died. In February

Rude shock. It was not the shock of death. We have seen death. Most of us have lost parents, siblings, friends. Even children. Andy signified our ambition of teenage goofiness. Our childhood aspirations to be young and vibrant forever. He was not supposed to die. At least not one of the first to go. His death has robbed us of our remaining childhood. Of that place we always went to forget the drudgery of adulthood.

Finally , we are realizing we are men and women. Past the best years of our lives. Entitled and destined to die . Like all humans. None of us will die in future and the world gets shocked he died too early. Well, we still have a lot of life left in us. But we cannot deceive ourselves anymore that we are young in any of its definitions. Young at heart? That’s adult consolation for loss of youth.

Andy’s death has taken that away. We have mourned him since his passing. But it’s also us mourning ourselves. Someone reminded us that attrition has started. And we should prepare. Who will be next? Who is the unfortunate person among us who will die last.? Who will mourn such person?

Again, when is the right time to die? Andy may not have seen his teenage kids grow to adulthood. His career as blogger , writer, publisher among others provided him exciting battles to fight. Most still unfinished. His kids will miss him. His siblings will mourn him. We are missing him.

I will miss him on Facebook where we sometimes sparred . From religion to politics. We did not always agree. But that teenage grace and cool always allowed us to disagree with decorum.

Why Do Man Die ?

In the early years of our high school, one of us asked a teacher the kinds of question that neither the teacher nor any of us has been able to answer. “ Why do Man die?(sic)”. He thundered with the wisdom of a teenager. We laughed. The teacher answered without conviction. And this boy became known through high school as “ Why do Man die?”. He had the single honor of a pet name that was an eternal question.

This week I remembered that question. It was a question by a teenager that defines our very existence. And the end of our journey through life.

Why do Man die? Why did Andy , our Man of Cool die?

So. When is the right time to die?

Perhaps the answer will heal all of us who are hurting. Who need reassurances of the rest of our journey through of what remains of our existence.

Andy’s journey here ended yesterday. We will let him rest.