I get a Facebook message from one of my maternal relatives, weeks after the trip to Sabongida Ora. We exchange numbers and talk over the phone. My mother was his aunt or half-sister, he says, and he remembers how nice she was. He says he knew me when I was a tiny thing. I don’t remember him at all and the initial question at the back of my mind was: Where have you been all this time? But he did make the effort. We still talk occasionally but with the blocks of time in between, each conversation seems to rest on a constant loop of banality. I wish we could get to know each other a little better than the time before.

Weeks later I get another Facebook message and friend request from someone who says she’s my mother’s younger, half-sister. I am both glad and confused to hear from her. That inner question pops up again. It takes me two days to accept the request and ask how she is. But she made the effort.

I wonder if, when I eventually, hopefully, get in touch with Uncle Daniel’s many children and their mother, that same question will be at the backs of their minds. Will they, ironically, feel the resentment towards me I had felt for their late father? After all, showing love and concern isn’t a one-way thing. The last time I called my never-seen-before cousin, David, someone totally different picked up the phone and said his name was David. Yes, he lives in Kaduna, but no, he wasn’t my cousin. How does one reconnect with long-lost relatives when things like that happen? I don’t have all the answers. All I know is to keep making the effort.