Who Is Covering Your Back?

Growing up in Madina, Accra, in the 80s and 90s, I observed something that was remarkable. I didn’t fully understand its significance then, but looking back now, I see a lesson in it that I believe is worth sharing.

There was a mentally challenged woman who occasionally walked through the neighbourhood. Whenever she came around, some of the elderly women who sold things by the roadside would give her food. Sometimes they would talk with her for a while, make sure she had eaten, and eventually she would move on. It was one of those scenes you could easily overlook because it happened as part of everyday community life. Nobody organised it. Nobody assigned it to anyone. It was simply what was done. Not for social media likes, comments and shares.

But there was something else these women did that caught my attention, something I have carried with me far longer than I expected to.

On days when the woman appeared naked or partly naked, the elderly women would quickly find something to cover her. They would get her clothes, wrap something around her and gently talk to her. Sometimes they would lead her somewhere to sit, give her something to eat and make sure she was properly covered before she continued on her way. There was no fuss about it. No commentary for the benefit of onlookers. Was kind of quiet, quick action, as though covering her was simply the next obvious thing to do.

Think about that for a moment. The woman may not have been fully aware of her nakedness, but these women were. And because they were aware, they protected her dignity on her behalf. They didn’t turn her condition into entertainment. They didn’t gather people around to laugh at her or whisper about her after she had gone. There were no phones then to record her for views, but even if there had been, I believe these women understood something deeper: someone’s vulnerability is not an invitation for public consumption. It is a call to responsibility.

They covered her.

Perhaps it was cultural. Perhaps it was simply human decency, the kind that doesn’t need a name to exist. Whatever informed their actions, they understood that even in her condition, even without her asking, her dignity was worth protecting.

Years later, I find myself thinking about those women often, and asking myself a different question, one that has nothing to do with clothing and everything to do with character:

Who is covering your back?

Life Has a Way of Exposing You

You may not literally be naked, but life has its own ways of exposing you. Pressure can expose you. Anger can expose you. Success can expose you just as thoroughly as failure can. Grief can expose you. Disappointment, frustration, exhaustion and even excitement can make you behave in ways that are unlike you, ways you wouldn’t recognise if you saw them played back to you.

None of us are at our best all the time. There are seasons when the weight of running a business, raising a family, managing a career or simply keeping life together becomes heavier than we let on. In those seasons, we say things we don’t mean. We make decisions in anger that we would never make in calm. We post things online in the heat of a moment that our future selves will wince at. We withdraw from people who love us because we are ashamed of how we are coping, or not coping.

There are days when you may think you are perfectly fine while those who know you well can see that something is changing. They notice the shorter replies. The missed calls that never used to be missed. The jokes that have an edge to them now. The silence where there used to be updates.

Who around you can notice and say, “Chale, something is not right. This is not you”?

Who can tell you, “Don’t post that”? Who can call you privately and say, “Take this thing down. You are angry now, and you may regret it later”?

Who can notice a pattern developing in your life before it becomes a bigger problem, before the small crack becomes the fracture that breaks something you cannot easily repair?

Who can protect you from yourself when, for a moment, your judgement is failing you?

These people matter more than we often admit, and we rarely appreciate them until we are in the middle of a mess and realise nobody close enough noticed, or nobody close enough cared enough to speak up. You need people in your circle who are not merely spectators of your life, applauding when things go well and disappearing when they don’t. You need people who care enough about you to intervene, even when intervening is uncomfortable, even when it risks the relationship itself.

A Cloth, Not a Camera

Unfortunately, we are living in an age where someone’s lowest moment can quickly become someone else’s content. A person can be struggling, breaking down or making a terrible mistake, and the first instinct of people around them may be to pull out a phone. Record it. Post it. Forward it. Discuss it in a group chat with laughing emojis. Sometimes the person who needs help becomes entertainment for people who claim to know them, people who once called themselves friends.

This is not just a comment on other people. It is a warning to examine ourselves. How many of us have been part of the audience rather than part of the rescue? How many of us have shared a screenshot before we checked on the person? How many of us have found it easier to talk about someone’s struggle than to sit with them in it?

That is why you must pay attention to the people around you, and to who you yourself are becoming in moments that test your character.

There should be people who, when they see your nakedness, reach for a cloth, not a camera.

And by nakedness, I am talking about those moments when your weaknesses, mistakes, emotions and poor judgement become exposed. You need people who will cover you without encouraging your wrongdoing. This distinction matters, and I don’t want it lost in the sentiment of this piece. Covering you doesn’t mean pretending you haven’t made a mistake. It doesn’t mean supporting foolishness or hiding harmful behaviour. Real covering is not enabling. Sometimes covering you means confronting you firmly but privately, helping you correct what needs correcting and preventing an unnecessary public spectacle. It means someone loves you enough to have the hard conversation instead of the easy exit.

A good friend doesn’t only celebrate you when things are going well. Anyone can do that. A good friend can recognise when you are going off course, and cares enough about where you end up to say something about it, even at the risk of you being upset with them for a while.

This isn’t just sentiment, either. In 2023, the United States Surgeon General issued a formal advisory describing loneliness and weak social connection as a public health concern serious enough to warrant national attention, and by 2024 that office had gone further, publishing a National Strategy to Advance Social Connection. One figure from that body of work was quite interesting: roughly one in four adults report that they do not feel they have someone they can genuinely confide in. Think about what that means at scale. A quarter of the people around you, in your community, your church, your office, your family gatherings, may be walking through life without a single person who would notice if something in them shifted, let alone reach for a cloth on their behalf. The people who cover you are not a soft nice-to-have you collect along the way. They are, in a very real and measurable sense, part of what keeps a person steady, and their absence is part of what leaves so many people quietly exposed.

Build Something, Then Protect It

At certain stages of life, your circle starts to matter differently than it used to. When you are young, friendship can be mostly about company: who you laugh with, who you hang out with, who makes the free time enjoyable. But as you build something of substance, a family, a career, a business, a reputation, a ministry, a network, a body of work, the stakes attached to your circle change too.

One careless season, one reckless decision, one public unravelling, can damage things that took decades to build. A single video, a single outburst, a single leaked message can undo years of quiet, disciplined work. This is not fear-mongering; it is simply the reality of how visible and permanent our worst moments have become. You therefore need people around you who value your preservation more than your performance, people who are more interested in who you become than in how entertaining your unraveling might be to watch.

And this responsibility goes both ways. It cannot only be about who is covering you. It must also be about whose back you are covering.

Whose back are you covering?

When someone you care about is going through a difficult season, are you protecting their dignity or discussing them behind their back? When a friend makes a mistake, are you helping them recover or forwarding the story to people who have no business knowing it? When someone you know begins behaving strangely, distancing themselves, losing their temper more easily, going quiet in ways that are unlike them, do you reach out to them privately, or do you wait for the situation to become something everybody can talk about?

Some things should never become content. Some conversations belong behind closed doors. Some mistakes require correction, not circulation. Some moments require a cloth, not a camera.

Become That Kind of Person

Those elderly women in Madina probably never imagined that decades later I would still remember what they did, that a boy watching from the roadside would grow up to write about it. They were simply responding to someone who needed help, doing what seemed to them like the obvious, unremarkable thing. But they taught me something about community that I don’t think I could have learned any other way: when someone loses the ability to cover themselves, somebody who cares should be close enough, and paying enough attention, to help cover them.

So, protect your dignity. Protect your integrity. Be careful about what you expose simply for attention, likes, applause or validation, because what you expose for a moment’s approval can outlive the moment by years. More importantly, build a circle containing a few people who can see what others may not see and who care enough to pull you aside when necessary, even when it costs them your temporary displeasure.

Find people who will tell you the truth without humiliating you. Find people who will correct you without broadcasting you. Find people who will protect your dignity without endorsing your mistakes.

And become that kind of person for somebody else, because covering someone is not a passive act. It is a decision, repeated, to reach for a cloth in a world that has made cameras far too easy to reach for.

Sometimes, you need someone standing quietly behind you with a cloth.

Who is covering your back?

Your life matters. Your dignity matters. Your integrity matters.

Preserve them.

Remember, I am your Branding and Publishing Consultant.

The best is yours.

Bernard Kelvin Clive