Always There, Never Counted - by Matthew Okibe

There is a pattern I have noticed too many times to ignore. The people I expect nothing from are the ones who show up. And the ones I build my expectations on—like a man building a house—are almost always missing when the roof needs to hold. I don’t know what to do with that. I watched a Nollywood film recently, Behind the Scenes. There is a brother in it—the one everyone had already buried with their opinions before the story even started. The one taking money, causing problems, never quite arriving at himself. He was background noise. Until he wasn’t. Until every person who was supposed to matter either revealed their true face or disappeared entirely—and he was the only one left standing in the rubble, holding things together. Not because anyone asked him to, but because something in him refused to let his sister’s story end badly. I sat with that for a long time after the credits. Because the film also asks a quieter question underneath all the drama—what if the person at the centre of everything disappeared on purpose? Not forever. Just long enough to see who would come looking. Who would panic. Who would reveal that they had only ever been close because it was convenient. It is a cruel experiment. But I understand why someone would want to run it. I thought about my father. My father is someone people depend on. In the army, in civilian life, in every room he has ever walked into, he stands out—not because he announces himself, but because he delivers. You put something in his hands—operations, construction, land, logistics—and it gets done. That is simply who he is. I have watched him be that person my entire life. And quietly, without ever saying it out loud the way I should have, I made him my benchmark. Not a role model in the abstract sense. A daily measuring stick. Am I becoming even half of what this man is? I have tried to be useful in the same way. Call me—I’ll find a way. Painting, screeding, sourcing electronics, foodstuff, connecting people, fixing problems. I show up in places I was not invited to lead and somehow end up carrying responsibility anyway. People remember me. They rely on me. They promise things. Most of those promises never come. I still show up. Because that is the only language I know how to speak. And yet, I am still counting rent. There was a day my mother gathered us. Something had been sitting with my father—the feeling that the people around him, the ones he has poured himself into, do not really appreciate him. That they take. That they expect. I sat there and felt something shift inside me. Because I have written things for this man. Quiet things. Personal things. I have handled situations so he would not have to worry. I have carried his name like something sacred, like a standard I am constantly trying to grow into. And still, I was not counted among the ones who appreciate him. My younger sister was. She has a gift with words—the kind that makes people feel seen instantly. She can say what she feels in a way that lands. And I am not saying she does not love him—she does. But I felt something sitting in that moment. That the one who says it out loud gets remembered. And the one who tries to become it… quietly… gets overlooked. Maybe I am not good at saying thank you in a way that feels visible. Maybe my love has always lived in effort instead of expression. But I did not think that would make it invisible. I think about that film again. About what it means to be the one nobody expects anything from. The one who shows up not because they are loud about it, but because they cannot live with themselves if they don’t. And I wonder—if everything went quiet, if everything paused, if people disappeared just long enough to reveal the truth… Would I be seen? Or would I still be background noise in a story I am quietly holding together? There is a loneliness in loving someone in a language they do not read. In showing up through work, through presence, through becoming—when what the world responds to is what is said, not what is carried. I am learning this slowly. That presence without performance is almost invisible. That the ones who hold things quietly are often the ones written off—until everything falls apart and someone has to stand in the gap. I do not have a clean ending for this. I am still in it. I just know that I am tired of being unseen in spaces I am helping hold together. And I know that somewhere, my father probably feels the same way. Maybe that is the most honest thing I have ever written about him. Maybe that is the appreciation he never heard.

Other insights from Matthew Okibe

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons