My very first memory of Uncle Yosi was when I was 6 years old. We lived in Legon Hill at that time and on a particular occasion when my father was in Cape Coast I came down with a high fever. Of all my father’s friends in Legon my cousin Auntie Esi Atta called Uncle Yosi to take both of us to the hospital. Luckily I recovered.

I subsequently grew up to become one of his Botany students and I honestly do not know how I passed that course because half of what he taught went over my head. As part of his lectures he also included a minor in Statistics. I counted myself lucky that he did not call on me to answer questions as frequently as Prof. Coker was doing in his Zoology lectures because mine was the only name in the class he knew.

Later as a new teaching assistant in the Nutrition and Food Science Department a student asked me a Statistics question I could not answer. I walked over to see Uncle Yosi in his office and he answered my question as well as gave me a Statistics textbook, inscribing it with congratulations on earning my first degree. When I showed it to my father he commented that that was just like Yosi Laing. He once invited me to one of his tutorial dinners at Legon Hall and after looking in vain for a thank you card from the bookshop I made one of my own and apologized for giving him a home-made card. He indicated that he appreciated it more than any I could have bought from the bookshop.

I later went on to graduate school and then entered the work force. During the period 2006 to 2008 I returned to Legon as a Visiting Scholar and was delighted when Uncle Yosi would invite me in the evenings to join him in the Legon or Sarbah Hall beer gardens. It brought back memories of when I used to join him with my father Prof. deGraft Hanson, together with other good friends of his like Prof. Kofi Sey, and Prof. Ato Dickson, and many others. Uncle Yosi, together also with Kwamina invited me to many musical and theatrical performances.

Once Uncle Yosi visited me in my flat and asked me to play him something on the piano. I selected a piece from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera but when I opened the music he told me to play it from memory and told me to set aside about 15 minutes each practice session for memorization. It was one of the best pieces of advice anyone ever gave me. I am an adult but I am still learning from him. He later sent me a journal article and asked for my input as a colleague. I was surprised he used that word. I could not understand how I progressed from being the daughter of his friend, a friend of his children, and his Botany student, to becoming his colleague, but that was Uncle Yosi for you.

It seems strange to me that he will not be found in the Legon Hall beer garden or anywhere else in Legon, but they are all there, all who have gone on before. Their spirits and influences are everlasting. No one who knew him will ever visit the University of Ghana Botanical Gardens and not think of him. We are poorer for having lost him, but we are all richer for having known him. Uncle Yosi rest in peace.