President George Bush and my Father….

I finally collected the re-mastered photograph of my father, Dr Olasupo Ojedokun and President George Bush taken in 1971 when he was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He paid a courtesy call on my father who was the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs at Victoria Island, Lagos. This is one of the few momenteos I have been able to salvage. Many were destroyed by termites because we left them unattended in our old house. It is 40 years now since my father passed on, and I hope to retrieve more pictures when I travel to Nigeria.

You may ponder and wonder what this has got to do with my twin. Well I grew up always imagining how I resembled my father never quite accepting that my twin was the one with the striking resemblance. In the face of overwhelming evidence from all our relatives, I convinced myself that as I grew older I would look more like him. But that was never to be, he died before he could go bald, and I have ended up bald. He was also much taller than me and darker just like my twin.

My twin was better at preserving my father's memory but now that she has gone, it is down to me and my younger brother Adebowale.

I am certainly more positive about my twin now, more accepting and I have discovered effective coping mechanisms with dealing with the loss of someone so close and so cherished.