Tim Skirvin (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tskirvin) wrote,@ 2007-08-08 09:22:00 |
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| Current mood: | Sad |
| Entry tags: | eulogy, tunji |
Tunji Toogun
Oyetunji Toogun (Tunji), my friend of ten years, died on Friday evening last week. He was 26 years old, and in the final stages of finishing up his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
It's always easier to discuss the details of the death than it is to talk about the person. In this case, though, there is little to tell factually. Tunji fell into the water of Lake Shelbyville, and he drowned; his friends attempted to rescue him, but they didn't get to him in time. It was a tragedy for everyone involved, and would be no matter who the victim had been. But, truthfully, those details don't matter. He died in an avoidable accident; let's leave it at that. What matters more is that he was a good man, a memorable man, and a friend to myself and hundreds of people around me.
I met Tunji at UIUC, when he came here as an incoming freshman in 1997 (Class of '01). He was just 16 years old at the time, and had managed to secure a place in one of Allen Hall's elite "quads", the significantly larger rooms where four people lived together rather than the typical two. He was immediately memorable, his very strong Nigerian accent setting the tone, while his willful, assertive, and persistent attitude stuck in our minds. But most prominent was something else: he was *young*, younger than most of those in his class by 2-3 years, and a good four years younger than myself. He wanted to fit in with his peers, and he chose to do so with swagger and bluff - and it didn't exactly work, at least not right away. He tagged along even though he didn't quite belong, and after merely tolerating it for a little while, we soon grew to expect it. He was accepted and mocked in equal measure, and as time passed, he became something that we didn't really know we needed - a younger brother.
Tunji really came into his own the next year, when we all lived together in Allen Hall's Ground South. The new batch of incoming freshmen (Class of '02) were still mostly older than him, but the age gap wasn't quite as severe; and Tunji had more experience with college, and could therefore set an example for them as well. Thus they (we) were cemented together, and as our floor built itself into its own unique identity, Tunji managed to quickly carve himself out a place of prominence that only grew with time. But still, he was our younger brother - ours to pick on, and to defend against anybody that might dare disparage him.
As he grew up, so did everyone else. He eventually moved out of the dorms and into a house with many of his Allen Hall friends; and he truly grew into his own person, someone to be looked up to and honored by those around him (including those of us that still looked at him as a kid brother). He finished his bachelor's degree and started his doctorate, planning to finish up within three years because, well, he was just that good. And we didn't know whether to believe it or not, but we took him at face value, because he was capable of handling it...
I partially lost track of Tunji around this time, partly because of the increased time pressures of his grad school work, but mostly because I just plain didn't see him as much when I wasn't living next door to him. But we still talked every time we saw each other, in public or in private, and we kept track of each other. The most amusing transition came when I began to only see him in public on the arm of 2-3 incredibly attractive women - and I'd always do a double-take. Tunji? A Player? *Our* little brother?
The last time last saw Tunji at my wedding in May. He was charming and wonderful, as always, and notably impressed many of my friends that had never had a chance to meet him before. I never did send him his thank-you card, in fact, because he insisted that I didn't have to...
And now, of course, I'm never going to get a chance to send it.
It's been a devastating few days. I got the call on Saturday evening, from an old friend of my brother's that had also lived in Allen with us; she had actually been there, and was going through the same horrible cycle of guilt, desperation, and obligation that she knew I would gladly join her with. I told those friends that were present what had happened, I calmed down a little bit, and I drove home to begin making the phone calls, tracking down his friends wherever they might be to tell them the awful, incomprehensible news about our brother.
It was a long process. Tunji had been a friendly, well-known guy; there were many dozens of people I needed to contact directly, let alone those further out on the tree. *Hundreds* of us were close with Tunji at one time or another, and I have to imagine that every one of us broke down and cried in those next few hours over our lost colleague, friend, and adopted member of our family.
The details make it real, but they aren't the story. The true story is of our times together: how Tunji was in our improv comedy troupe (Like Disco... but not Really) in 1999, how he would order the horrible dorm pizza every night for most of his dorm career, how we laughed at his accent ("GROUND-SOUTH-ERS, NOT GROUND-SOUTH-ASS!"), the time that my Dad accidently scared him into coming to class every day... We all have our own favorite dozen stories, and they're all personal and important and nothing that would even make sense to an outsider.
But to me, the story really comes down to how this kid showed up, annoyed the hell out me and my friends even as we accepted him - and grew up. At first we had to take care of him, even as we fought with him; eventually, we didn't need to take care of him anymore, because he was able to take care of himself. He went out and put his own life together, and surpassed anything that we could have expected. And, as with any good sibling, he made me me more honored and humble to have been his friend every time I saw him.
And then something awful happens, and all I can think about is how I wish I could have been there to help him once more...
[...]
For now, I'm trying to remain strong, and figure out what we're going to do for him - where the donations should go, how we should honor our friend, who needs a shoulder to cry on, how to get a hold of those that need to know but haven't been in contact for so many years. I've grown numb over the last few days. It won't last; I know that I'm going to break down and cry again soon. It hasn't really taken much to set me off so far - finding out about a seminar that he will now not be holding, thinking about those people on the boat with him, or just talking to my closest friends about how we'll never get to see him again - these are the kinds of things that have set me off so far, and which will keep on happening over time.
The funeral is tomorrow at 11am in Chicago. Friends are going to stream in from all over the country for this, dropping everything to be with our friend - our brother - one last time. We'll probably go for pizza afterwards, and try to laugh and joke and carry on like old times in a vain attempt to act like Tunji was still there. We'll order something for Tunji, too, and make sure that it's either burnt or from Dominos or otherwise as much like the old dorm pizza as we can make it.
We're going to take donations. I don't know where it's going towards yet, We're probably going to have a separate wake down in C-U at some point soon, so we can remember him. I'm still working on a photo gallery, and will gladly accept more shots. I hope we can figure out how to get him a posthumous degree. And if there's anything else I can do for my friend or his family, I will find a way to make it happen.
But for now, as I avoid trying to cry again, I can only think of Tunji's voice:
<accent type='tunji'>Goddammit.</accent>
I miss you, Tunji.
