ToluOJ.com

Forgiveness was a big part of my childhood – at home, and in church. The concept was hammered into my head as a child and drilled in at Sunday school.

Forgive others as Christ has forgiven you. Forgive and forget. Turn the other cheek, and all of that. I understood it then, and I understand it now. But nobody told me how hard it would be to forgive the person that you trust most in the world. And no, I’m not talking about my spouse, or partner – I’m talking about my best friend.

I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. I was a quiet boy – an only child to my Professor Father, and Lecturer mother. My parents tried for years to have another child, but I guess it just wasn’t in the cards. My best friend, Akin – was the exact opposite of me. Loud where I was subdued, funny where I was dry, excited where I was forlorn. We met in secondary school as bunkmates in hostel, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.

At least until the day that everything changed. We met at the coffee shop, as usual. You see, we weren’t just best friends, we were business partners. We were co-developing an app that would connect content creators and influencers to the right brands using AI. It was going to be revolutionary – at least we thought so. Neither of us had quit our day jobs though, so I guess that says something.

Anyway, we would meet every weekend at the coffee shop to work on the app – my best friend was the technical person and worked on the coding and programming. I was the marketing guru – I had so many ideas on how we would push it, get content creators, and brands to sign up, and make the big bucks. We planned our futures around the success of this app – it was an escape from our boring jobs in banking, and health insurance.

I showed up to our coffee shop that Saturday, armed with some new ideas for marketing, and updates on a horrible date I had recently been on. We would usually meet at 12pm – I was always on time, a habit I picked up from my parents, but he was always late. So, it didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t showed up at 12:30pm. I started getting a little concerned at 1:00pm though, and I texted and called a few times, but there was no response.

He hadn’t called to cancel, and I usually knew what his schedule was like, so I found it a bit weird. I waited for another 30 minutes, sent him a Whatsapp message calling him a monkey for standing me up, and went home to enjoy the rest of my weekend. I made a mental note to reach out to him the next day and called it a night.

Well, I didn’t have to wait too long to hear from him. My best friend, Akin, of almost 15 years, sent me a message, letting me know that he had left the country. Apparently, Akin had been planning to japa for almost 2 years, and ‘he didn’t know how to tell me’. Imagine that? My best friend! He processed his papers, planned his trip, packed his bags, and bought his ticket, all while talking to me every day, and seeing me every weekend.

I don’t know how to forgive this one. Even If I forgive, I don’t know if I can forget.