i'm procrastinating writing this. like i've been procrastinating living my life to the fullest. but my thoughts return to you so i am writing. i heard you passed today. immediately tears crawled out of me and i screamed. ran to my bed, lay there, cried. i cried mostly because i never told you how much you touched me. and that ain't right. you taught me ME. you taught me about me, you taught me about Africa, about West Africa, about Pan Africanism, about Kwame Nkrumah, taught me about our politics, history, spirituality. you taught me what cosmology means. and it has nothing to do with make up. it's how a people see the world. i still remember that, you had this way of making the complex so easy to understand.
i apologize so deeply for hoarding my words of love for you in my heart, they belonged to you, not me. and so now, inadequate though it may be, i hope it means something to say i love you. i thank you for dedicating your life to teaching people like me, for spending many more years than
i've even been alive teaching. i thank you for being so open to speaking at that commemoration of Kwame Ture's life i organized my first year at Oberlin--you were phenomenal. honestly, you always kind of scared me. mostly because i felt like you could see right through me, i had no defenses or quick answers with you, just the truth of my thoughts. i know you have touched and moved thousands and thousands of people. and i hope i do you proud.i don't think you're online in the after life reading my blog, but i do so strongly pray that you get these words somehow, that some angel delivers these words to you and you know they're from me and you know that for every word written here, there's so many others who feel the same.
Professor Yakubu Saaka, Rest In Power. i, and so so many others, love you and thank you, honor you and are honored to have known you.
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