by 
Funmi Iyanda && Akin
Renowned TV personality Funmi Iyanda shared a powerful story today on her Medium page as she talks about her friend, Akin, who after 51 years is ready to come out of the closet – even though he never particularly tried to hide his sexuality (so basically, people around already know ).
Her post, simply called “For Akin…on bravery, honesty and thriving”, is such an interesting read and it is in three short parts.
Read excerpts below.
You see, in 2009, Akin had been diagnosed with Kaposi Sarcoma; he got cancer at the height of his career and life. He lived in a penthouse by Amsterdam’s beautiful Ijhaven harbor from where he travelled widely and entertained often. He was an affluent Eurocentric Anglicized Nigerian, one of those shiny examples of diaspora success.
He had been HIV positive since 2002 but because he was simultaneously fatalistic and scared, he cloaked himself in invincibility. Soon after his cancer diagnosis, he also developed full-blown AIDS. Without any family in the Netherlands he spent weeks in hospital and months of chemotherapy on his own. He’s talks wryly about that time in hospital, watching others die and the pain of chemo. He talks of his faith in his ability to recover and a determination to live with the casualness the British talk about weather.
I have no idea how he took care of himself those years although he says his neighbors helped. I often ask why no one from his family came to stay with him but he’d say no one thought “it was that bad” because he kept blogging and lived as normally as he could. He was given 6 months off work post Chemotherapy but he took six weeks. He once wrote that his motto through life, cancer and AIDS was to thrive. In his words “I will never live as if I’m dying, l do not intend to start doing that now. I live to live well”.
A year and a half later his cancer had gone into remission and his HIV viral load fallen to undetectable. His doctors thought it was a miraculous recovery.
The disease had however taken its toll on his work and finances such that he had to sell his half a million Euro penthouse. He tells me about the immense relief of letting go of everything he once owned and the power of separating material things into needs and wants.
He had continued to blog though the years of treatment and recovery, through job loss, home loss and eventual homelessness. He still blogs, one of the longest running, never missed a post in 13 years. I suspect blogging became therapy but don’t tell him that.
He has that thing of making the effortful seem easy. He is disciplined, consistent and analytical even about his own excesses.
At the time l met him, his cancer had gone into remission and he was AIDs free, he had come back to London to start over. He was born in the UK and educated in Nigeria speaking fluent Yoruba, Hausa, Dutch and a most annoyingly pristine English. He always insists he is as English as anyone else can claim.
The disease had however taken its toll on his work and finances such that he had to sell his half a million Euro penthouse. He tells me about the immense relief of letting go of everything he once owned and the power of separating material things into needs and wants.
He had continued to blog though the years of treatment and recovery, through job loss, home loss and eventual homelessness. He still blogs, one of the longest running, never missed a post in 13 years. I suspect blogging became therapy but don’t tell him that.
He has that thing of making the effortful seem easy. He is disciplined, consistent and analytical even about his own excesses.
At the time l met him, his cancer had gone into remission and he was AIDs free, he had come back to London to start over. He was born in the UK and educated in Nigeria speaking fluent Yoruba, Hausa, Dutch and a most annoyingly pristine English. He always insists he is as English as anyone else can claim.
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Photo Credit: Medium | @faduks