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It’s exactly a year today when I received a distress call from Aunty Moji, your lifelong wife, and friend. She had asked me to come to the house quickly because something serious had happened. I wasn’t in a situation where I could make it there. I feared the worst had happened. I waited for another call to hear that everything was fine. The call never came. Instead, a Nigerian community member called to inform me that you had fallen asleep never to wake up. Your heart failed. You slept in the middle of your preparation for a trip to Europe for one of your intellectual obligations. The depth of the sorrow I felt, I could not and still cannot put into coherent sentences. You were my advisor, my mentor, and father figure. I was still at your home for a Thanksgiving dinner two days prior. I didn’t know that was how you would say goodbye. None of us did.
Losing you to the cold hands of death threw my world into bleak, overpowering darkness. I cried every day for weeks. I had never shed a tear for anyone since losing my mother over twenty-one years before you passed. I have overcome many obstacles in life, and I have always found a way to laugh at my pain. This time, I had no anchor. The floodgates opened, and I wept like an orphan. I thought about every plan we’ve made about completing my dissertation and the jobs you were looking out for me to target. The article you promised to read when you returned from that trip. And so many other things I could have done but didn’t do with you. So many regrets about moments that slipped away. I thought about the time I should have seized an opportunity to ask this or that question. I thought about the fact that you left us with so much unfinished business.
You were a brilliant, kind, and large-hearted person. In your unique way, you taught and pushed your students to exceed what they thought was their limit. You groomed thinkers, not specialists. You were a towering figure in African, Caribbean, African American literature, postcolonial studies, genre studies, and popular culture studies. Your work cuts across different fields and disciplines. You were fascinated by nature. You were an avid photographer who captured everything and gave thought about phenomena in exciting ways. You started many firsts in field-defining edited volumes, monographs, essays, and landmark projects that have paved the way for many scholars in African and Diasporic Studies. In your classroom, you taught, fed your students, and encouraged the sharing of snacks and stuff to foster a community among them. You were an unassuming gentleman and a scholar who commanded the respect of his teachers, colleagues, and students alike. You retained a sense of humor, humility, and ordinariness that demystified your deep baritone voice and your towering achievements and accomplishments.
In my speech at your funeral, I promised to honor your memory by completing the project we started together. I have fulfilled that vow. It was not an easy feat powering through depression, uncertainties, and other life vicissitudes that followed your departure. One thing I’m grateful for is that your name continues to speak for me. Some members of the university community rallied around me and other advisees left in limbo by your demise. In the English department, your colleagues at UW-Madison stepped in and bore the burden of your absence in my life and many others. With the support system of so many people, including the unflinching encouragement of your lovely wife, Prof. Moji Olaniyan, I pulled through. I defended the project successfully earlier this month. Aunty has been a rock for everyone close to you and the family. She has been strong and courageous, even as she misses you. Every occasion is a reminder for Aunty to bring up a story about you. Those memories are surprisingly soothing and reassuring. Even though you’re gone, you’re never forgotten.
And now, I look to the future, hopeful. I remembered your word that day I walked into your office worried about my future in the field. I was uncertain and suffering from that “impostor syndrome” every grad student feel at one point or the other. I entertained doubt as to whether I could write the prelims or not. You said, “the future doesn’t exist,” and that I should focus on the task right in front of me. Such depth was not immediately apparent to me until Aunty confided in me about your heart condition. You had lived with the reality of dying every day for thirteen years after the diagnosis. Yet, you carried on with such grace and fearlessness. You walked among us, accepting life in its stride, one day at a time. Aunty told me that you usually say, every day you’re alive is a good day! You stayed healthy and poured your heart out to your family, work, and mentees from different parts of the world. You gave of yourself everything, and you were still giving when the heart put you to sleep.
You left us as the Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and Wole Soyinka Professor of Humanities (a chair you got to name after one of your teachers). You achieved this rare feat with an out-of-this-world work ethic, laser-focused intellection, clarity of purpose, and grace. You left a shoe too big for anyone to fill. Many of your contemporaries find your work unmatched, given the depth, breadth, and clarity of your intellectual curiosity and the range of scholarship you’ve produced. You left a bit of yourself in everything that has your name on it. Your works will continue to bear witness to your greatness. You live on in all of us that you’ve touched with your knowledge and your humanity. I miss you so much, Prof. Thank you for everything. Rest well, great man.
Please visit the family memorial website to learn more about the life and times of Prof. Tejumola Olaniyan: https://www.rememberingteju.com/