The Information Theory

There’s so much I want to say to you right now, but I can’t

—

“Mr. Eye-hee-nachos? Mr. Eye-hee-nachos”

I was cleaning my glasses when they called me. It was a habit I had stolen from my father. When I was growing up, he would have friends over to debate philosophy and science. He would listen intently, frequently pushing the glasses back up the bridge of his nose, slippery with the sweat induced by Peppersoup and Hennessy. When he had a deep question or insight for you, he would call you by your full name respectfully “Jonathan Okafor, please.” Then, in one motion, he would remove the glasses from his face and the handkerchief from his pocket. “Are your own children better behaved when you are watching them or when you are not watching them? Is your very home, itself, not a panopticon? Are your children free?” As my father cleaned his glasses the person questioned sat silent and dumbfounded.

“Mr. Eye-hee-nachos? Mr. Eye-hee-nachos”

“Did you mean Ee-heh-ah-na-chuh?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Mr. Iheanacho.”

“That’s okay, you can call me Vincent.”

“Sure thing Vincent, you can come on back. Your father’s stable. But we’re going to monitor him for a few more days.”

—

My father never liked hospitals. He didn’t like the proximity to death. He would say, “Onye si ‘M na-anwụ’ ahụbeghị onye nwụrụ anwụ.” He wasn’t speaking now. A series of wires connected him to machines that kept him on this side of the living. When I walked in, his head rolled over and his eyes met mine. A twinge in his eyebrow belied his struggle to remember me. I hardly looked the same since he had last seen me 30 years ago.

The physician: “Your father’s lucky we found him when we did. People with Alzheimer’s shouldn’t be living alone. Like I mentioned before. He’s stable now that we have nutrients in him, but we want to monitor him for a few days to give a recommendation on the next steps…”

My father barely looked like himself. He was always a slim man — built sturdy with the character of the iroko tree. The Yoruba say that he who cuts down the iroko tree brings misfortune on himself. My father seemed a slice of his former self. He was too thin, frail looking. If he were to speak, I would have been surprised if there were any baritone left in his voice. I wonder what he saw in my eyes.

The physician: “Vincent? Vincent are you hearing me?”

“I’m sorry it’s just…it’s just a lot to digest.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m throwing a lot at you. Your sister said that you hadn’t spoken to your father in some time.”

“Yes, it feels like a lifetime ago that I last saw my father. I’m sorry, did you say he had Alzheimer’s?”

“Yes, it’s very unusual to forget to eat for several days.”

“My sister mentioned he was getting more absent minded after our mother died. He was always a thinker, but my sister said it was different, like he was deeply distracted. We thought it was grief.”

“It’s difficult to diagnose at the early stages. It looks too much like part of the aging process at first. Forgetting things. Getting distracted.”

“I’m so confused…”

“Listen, it might be best if I gave you some time with your father. I’ll be just a page away if you need me.”

I could hear myself murmuring thank you as the doctor left the room. As the door closed behind, I felt like I was being teleported to a scene from a past life. My father and I hadn’t spoken one word or laid an eye on each other for 30 years. And here we were meeting each other again, this time as two men.

—

“Victoria Okechi Iheanacho!” my father would use my full name when he wanted me to know the gravity of a situation. I was 23 and I had just graduated from New York University in America. Lagos and New York City were 5,000 miles apart on a map and 5,000 years apart in progress.

“Victoria Okechi Iheanacho, are you hearing me!” My father seldom raised his voice at me and my sister. Today he was irate. He kept pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, slippery with the Lagos summer sweat.

My mother was sobbing uncontrollably as she was known to do during stressful situations: “Chukwu kedu ihe anyi mere iji mee ihe a.” She was asking God why this misfortune had fallen on them. I was asking God the same question.

My father continued despite my mothers lamentations, “What do you mean you want to be called Vincent. Who is Vincent?”

“Papa, you have seen the way I dress now. You know that there was something different about me.”

“No! No! Not my daughter. Your mind has been corrupted in America. I biri n’ala ndi ocha and you come back here telling me you are now Vincent. Tell me who is Vincent?!”

I told myself I wouldn’t cry. Girls cry. My father would never respect me as a man if he saw me cry. But I didn’t know it would be this hard telling my parents who I really was. They wanted me to be somebody I could never be. I wanted to be somebody they could never accept. I was trapped between a rock and self love.

I started crying.

—

I had lost track of the days. I think I had been in the hospital with my dad for maybe 3 or 4 days. I would steal away during the day to take care of his affairs, and spend the evenings by his side. He earned a professorship at Rutgers Newark about 25 years ago. My sister told me he planned to use it as a stepping stone to teach at Princeton or Penn. Unfortunately for him, tenure is the great ambition killer.

He was a good professor, teaching the science of communication, the math of information theory. He taught students about how to pass messages through a noisy medium without information loss. He preached the gospel of the bit — the binary digit. His students loved him. His colleagues respected him. Yet, few had heard from him in the last six to nine months. Everyone I talked to was surprised to hear he was hospitalized.

“To be honest, he’s been unreachable. Phone Calls, house visits, nothing. I mean you expect a guy who lost a wife to want some space. But it’s been a couple years…”

“We had to ask him to give up teaching duties, because…well frankly…it just didn’t suit him anymore.”

“We saw him around campus, sure. He’d just kind of be walking around. We thought he wouldn’t want to be bothered.”

I would have to sell his house and make new living arrangements for him. I’d wait for my sister to arrive to make those decisions. She was finally on her way after sorting her visa issues.

—

I rushed back to the hospital after the doctor called me saying that my father was asking for me urgently. I was confused and anxious sitting in the back of the cab on the way to the hospital. I had taken to reading passages to my father from his favorite books. But despite spending several days with him, he didn’t seem to recognize who I was. I thought I was a perfect stranger to him.

When I got to the hospital, the doctor said: “Vincent, I’m glad you’re back. Your dad has been asking for you non-stop the past half hour.”

“What?”

“Non-stop. It’s been ‘where is Vincent,’ and ‘I want to see Vincent’ for the past 30 minutes.”

I was even more confused, “He…he said exactly those words?…He called me…He called me Vincent?”

The doctor led me back to my father’s room. When I walked in I saw a light flash across my father’s face that I hadn’t seen for 30 years.

“Vincent! My son! Where have you been? How is NYU?”

I was caught flatfooted. A weight felt like it lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t planned on crying, but I managed to choke out: “School is good Papa? And what about you, Kedu ka i mere.”

As we saw each other again, I know that we shared the same thought. There’s so much I want to say to you right now, but I can’t.

Originally published at https://www.hectorbis.com on March 22, 2021.