When we visited you at the Accident Unit of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in September 2020, you were waiting for the doctors to fix a broken bone caused by a fall. You looked pale and drawn. But you lightened up on seeing Lee and me – much to the amazement of the attending nurses.We stayed with you for a while, doing everything we could to cheer you up.
After some forty minutes we had to say goodbye, on a cue from the nurses. But on three occasions, you asked the nurses to call me back. Now I know. That was your way of saying your final goodbye.
It has been a life-long friendship beginning from Ashanti New Town in Kumasi where we inherited a close brotherly relationship nurtured between our fathers. Later on, by the time I came down from Cambridge to settle in London in the second half of the 1970s, you had also completed dentistry and had started business in real estate.
Your meteoric rise in business in England followed and with it came wealth and fame. You reached the pinnacle of your chosen career in business. I remember a number of top-notch English society who would call at our table to exchange pleasantries as we sat at the bar in Dorchester where we used to meet every Friday evening for our “gentlemen’s drink”. You made us all very proud.
When we found ourselves back home in Ghana around the year 2000, our relationship remained strong. You bore your changed situation with the bravery of a Roman warrior. Your wit, your sense of humour and your deep intellectual commitment never failed, even at the deep end of your health situation.
Fare thee well, my brother and friend. You shall be sorely missed.
BIG T
By Owusu Afriyie Akoto