For Chinwe… The last conversation I had with Chinwe included tracing a time map of our relationship and its iteration in New York in the nineties. Before that she was someone I had always known through ties that included our parents, social circles and secondary school. Chinwe was remarkable over and above her antecedents. She was brave, courageous and selfless. We Nigerians come from a culture that recognizes pedigree built on achievement, but there is a special place for those who are imbued with the drive to continue on that trajectory and add value to their lives, not just to say I am fine, I can coast here. She was special. Looking back now at what she made of her life we have to recognize how deeply it was anchored in purpose, that of improving the quality of the lives of the people it was her mission to serve, protect and sustain, just as much as it was illuminated by a most powerful grace. Our first recon in New York took place when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, we had bumped into each other on the street and she later invited me to dinner at her club. It was at the end of a long day and she must have been tired but she did not make it an issue. She never made her physical condition an issue. It never defined her. One knew it, but it simply did not feature in interactions with Chinwe. Yes it was a terrain nature had forced her to inhabit. It was a frame that held the portrait of her life, but what did that have to do with anything? All lives are framed by conditions. Some are easier to adjust to than Chinwe’s certainly were. Her ability to contain them and move on virtually imperceptibly is defined by one word: courage. That was what left me in awe of Chinwe when we met up again years later. She was in a hospital in New York, on the road to recovery but what a long and arduous road it had been, one that included major surgeries and a step-by-step rehabilitation, only to be struck down again: but she triumphed. I had travelled from South Africa to China and back to New Jersey with my husband and two daughters. Chinwe had moved out of Manhattan to a delightful cottage in a leafy New Jersey suburb. We were neighbours so to speak. She had a garden and a beautiful new home. I made jewellery, she bought a necklace. We did sleep overs, she ordered a custom made hat from me to wear to a wedding. Life renewed, maybe she will keep to this pace, I thought. Our conversation often turned to matters of family and culture, love and values and I found a well of wisdom and grace that I continue to dip into today to give women of my daughter’s generation advice. Chinwe once told me, and I paraphrase here, that there is a sacrament passed from parents to their offspring that imbues each person with the skill required to live with another person in a marriage. I thought to myself, that is such a generous turn of phrase. We were both now motherless and fatherless and at a stage where you realise you are it, standing at the threshold of matriarchy, there is no one ahead of you. Chinwe concluded her thesis by saying she just had not come with the receptor required to receive that particular` sacrament. That of course was wrong. The ability to form long lasting ties is not bound by one particular framework. Relationships matter because of the quality of love and respect we bring to them, and the term family encompasses more than simply biology. Chinwe had all the attributes that love requires and more…And so it seems to me that the reason for her answer was yet another aspect of her grace, absence of selfishness and courage. After South Africa we met only once briefly in Lagos in 2007 or was it 2008? Chinwe was by then headed to work in the Gambia as UNDP Resident Representative. In the last two years our other conversations took place over the phone whenever I visited the US and, invariably, Chinwe was in hospital or just out of one. The last one took place in February. The names of a number of mutual friends flittered through our conversation and I was reminded of how important it is to make friends that enhance the value of life for you, that root you and reinforce your beliefs, and that leave you with principles to emulate. It is not how long, but how well. Chinwe Dike ran a good race. May she rest in the peace she richly deserves. Amma Ogan 28 May 2015 Johannesburg, South Africa.