‘Ifyoulikedie Bassey.

‘I know. I asked Mum that as well as soon as I was old enough to know anything. Must have been ten or eleven and I was back in Primary school, the butt of all manner of jokes. So I asked Mum and she said “Daddy would be mad if I told you”, so I asked Dad and he said “Mummy would cry if I told you” (this was before “Catch 22” entered the dictionary so I did the circuit a few times before I grew some sense). I was fifteen before I figured it out myself: I had five brothers before me who died before their first birthday. Probably sickle cell anemia or something, but my parents figured I was the same old demon tormenting them with multiple reincarnations. So they taunted me with a sarcastic name. Except that I didn’t die after all.

‘What? Oh, my friends call me “Die” for short…’

4 Replies to “My Name is Chuma, What's Yours?”

  1. Ginger says:

    I feel the parents pain but haba!!!

    Lets hope he doesn’t attend MFM prayer sessions where Die! Die! Die! Die! is a common refrain. LOLss

    Reply
  2. Chuma Nwokolo says:

    🙂 it would be an interesting world, won’t it, Ginger, if we all answered to the sentences that inspired our names! I guess an earlier generation of parents tended to take more liberties with the names of their children…

    Reply

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