A Box of Chocolates: A Memoir of Childhood, Faith, Family And Becoming

Chukwuma OrjiIn a time when daily life feels fragmented, hurried and increasingly detached from memory, A Box of Chocolates offers something quietly radical: attention. Written with warmth, restraint and clarity, Lucy Irene Vajime’s memoir traces an ordinary life rendered extraordinary by how closely it is observed.Moving between childhood in Tamale, adulthood in Nigeria, and the long arc of memory, the book asks a deceptively simple question: What shapes us, long before we realize it does? At its heart, A Box of Chocolates is a meditation on people, the ones who raise us, teach us, test us and sometimes leave us.Like the metaphor that gives the book its title, the memoir presents human beings in all their variety: strong older sisters, indulgent grandmothers, disciplined teachers, devout parents of different faiths, neighbours, colleagues and strangers who briefly alter the course of a life.Each chapter functions as a carefully unwrapped piece of memory, distinct yet connected. Rather than dramatizing events, Vajime allows meaning to emerge through detail: school walks lined with snacks and songs, shared bowls of food during Sallah, Christmas dresses sewn by an older sister, long road journeys across borders, the quiet shock of aging and loss.These moments mirror experiences many readers will recognize, not because they lived the same life, but because they lived a life shaped by family, ritual, migration, education, work and change. The memoir is also notable for its portrayal of religious coexistence and cultural continuity.Christianity and Islam exist side by side in the author’s upbringing, not as tension points, but as shared moral frameworks that inform generosity, discipline and care. In an era marked by division, the book reminds readers that pluralism has long been practised quietly in everyday homes. Written later in life, following retirement and personal loss, A Box of Chocolates carries the reflective depth of hindsight without sentimentality.It does not seek to impress or persuade; instead, it invites readers to slow down, remember and perhaps reconsider their own stories, the roads they walked, the people who fed them, the voices that shaped their inner lives. This is not a memoir of celebrity or spectacle. It is a book about how lives are actually lived, and why those lives matter. For inquiries or to purchase a copy, please email lucyvajime@gmail.com or visit RovingHeights.com.ngWhy This Book Now? Because in a world obsessed with urgency and novelty, A Box of Chocolates insists on the value of memory, attentiveness and ordinary human connection. It is a book for readers who want to feel grounded again; in family, in history, in themselves.

·         Mr. Orji writes from Abuja