March 17th, Five Years Without Fritz

Five years.

I keep saying it to myself to see if it settles. It does not.

March 17th, 2021. That is the day you left. And today, March 17th, 2026, I am sitting here doing what I always do when the date comes around — writing to you.

I wrote to you on your birthday in December. I wrote publicly, for the first time, because I wanted the world to know you were real. That you mattered. That there was a man named Fritz who reached across the internet to a suspicious young Nigerian in 2020 and changed the shape of his life.

Today is different from December. December still has warmth in it, a birthday feeling, something celebratory underneath the grief. March 17th is quieter. It is the day the phone went silent. It is the day I learned that some people leave before you are ready.

I was never ready.

What five years has taught me

Grief does not go away. I think I used to believe it would, that one day I would remember you and it would just be soft and fond and clean. But five years in, I still feel the missing.

What has changed is that I have gotten better at carrying it.

There are moments now where I hear something funny, or I read something that I know you would have had thoughts about, and instead of the sadness coming first, the warmth comes first. You, leaning forward in your chair, paying attention the way you always did, a little amused, a little wise, about to say something that I will turn over in my head for days.

That is where you live now. In the warmth that comes before the ache.

The things I wish I could tell you

I graduated. I walked. I stood on the other side of the work and the years, and I thought of you.

You wrote my recommendation letter to ALU Rwanda. You believed in me before I had the results to justify it. You saw something and you vouched for it, quietly, the way you did everything.

I graduated, Fritz. I want you to know that.

Al and I are still close. We still carry you between us. We still talk about going to Germany, going to where you were laid, standing in that place together. We still mean it. All things going well, we will get there.

I also want you to know that I have not forgotten the feel of talking to you. How easy it was. How safe it felt to be honest. I have met very few people in my life who made honesty feel safe, and you were one of them. I am still learning how to be that for others.

What I carry

You taught me that care does not need a reason.

You reached out to me because you genuinely liked young Africans. You genuinely liked people. You were not building something. You were not gaining anything. You were just… present. Interested. Generous with your time and your faith in people.

I think about that a lot. In a world that is constantly trying to extract and optimize and transact, you were just there. Freely.

I am still trying to learn that. I am still trying to be that kind of person — the kind who shows up without a reason, who listens without a motive, who sees someone and makes them feel seen.

You made me feel seen.

A quiet thank you, five years on

I do not have more words than that today.

Just that I am still here. That I am doing well in most of the ways that count. That I still think about you when something happens worth sharing.

That I miss you, and that I am grateful, and that neither of those things has gotten smaller with time.

Rest well, old man.

You are still loved.