Are police truly our friends?
IT’S NOT ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM!
Oginnni? It is as if Mother has refused to get well, and she knows we cannot afford this at all, mba” blurted Onyinye immediately we left the hospital to get food for our mother who has been hospitalized for the past one month, the sickness has been diagnosed to be malaria parasite but she hasn’t improved a bit ever since. when she threw up the concocted rice Onyinye bought this morning, again it occurred to me that we might be losing her but Onyinye shares a different opinion, she believes mother is just not trying to be well, according to her, she is not trying enough to get out of that hospital bed and go home to take up responsibilities, she says “mother knows we can’t afford to spend the little we have on hospital alone when there is no food in the house, the rent is there, debts have been incurred and she is just lying there accepting all the sympathies, I don’t know of anything she is doing to get well” when I explained that people don’t pretend to be sick at least not for so long and when people get sick, they just don’t determine to get well and miraculously get well but she won’t hear any of this. Don’t judge her yet, Onyinye is not heartless, she is just frustrated.
My name is Nonso, you just met my sister and my mother and now me, I still have three other siblings and we are the family of Nwokwuku. First thing you should know about us is that we are very Poor, if you know all the definitions of being poor then ascribe it to us because I wouldn’t want to go into all those horrible details of being a host of poverty. My father is alive but dead to us because we don’t even know where he is, ever since madam “syntheleta” vyed for the post of councilor in my community and lost my father disappeared with her for the past ten years but news reaching us says they got married and are now living in Port Harcourt while some claim Madam took him out of the country. As you could guess he wasn’t the responsible type before his disappearance, he was unemployed though he had a motorcycle he uses for commuting passengers but his proceeds never get to be used for our welfare, he always made sure he had no money on him when he returns home late into the night, some days he would not even show up. before he disappeared we had already concluded that he was dead to us except Mother who still nursed the hope of him returning someday to come beg for forgiveness as she would sometimes say” I don’t want your father returning and see you suffering, he would not appreciate me”. My mother and sometimes my elder sister who had married earlier shouldered the family’s responsibility of feeding and the payment of our two-room apartment, anyone who desired to be educated would have to see him/herself through with no help from home.
So my journey began, I had a small farm I was managing for one of my uncles as soon as I was eleven. So I planted all manner of crops and with so much hard work and many other menial jobs like bricklaying, block making, painting I saw myself through university and finished with a strong 2-1. I am the first and only graduate of the family. My elder sister was in her first year in the polytechnic when she got pregnant for a member of staff of the school, luckily, the man married her and she managed to get her OND but she has not been able to go back to school because of family obligations but she is averagely okay. Onyinye enrolled in Government empowered program to learn sewing and ever since she finished, she has not been able to get money to buy a sewing machine and get a shop. She works with a woman who over works her with such a meager pay but it’s either that or marriage to some never-do-well. My immediate younger sister left with one of my mother’s sisters to Ibadan with a promise to send her to school but Nena has been engaged in food selling in my aunt’s restaurant, now my aunty has sent word that she is pregnant for a riff-raff and has refused to come home and all we do is to hope she would be fine.
Nedu is still in secondary school and with the way he is going I only hope he doesn’t turn out to be like Father, he behaves so irresponsibly in spite of all that I have done to mentor him. He sings in a club house claiming he wants to use that to support himself as it is with all of us but it turned out that he has been badly influenced. The other day I found him in an uncompromising position with a young girl of his age and he started swearing when I corrected him. When he threatened to leave the house and run away Mother begged me to let him be. I can say that I have done well for myself by going to a university, I have even done the compulsory NYSC service but unfortunately for me as it is with many youths in the country I have nothing to show for the struggled years of hard labour. when I look back to my university days, I look back with regret of all the things I could have done, groups I could have joined, friends and connections I could have made but I couldn’t because I had to see myself through, working all the time sometimes I even miss lectures but I made sure I had time to read enough to cover up. I did my best to finish with a very good result so as to change my family story. As the first male child, a lot is expected of me, yet, I can’t make any difference. For the past two years that I have finished serving with the NYSC; I have not been able to get a job. When I got frustrated, I went back to my uncle to see if I could continue to manage his farm but he was very indifferent saying “since you knew you would be coming back to the farm why go to school”
Though my family was not responsible for my education asides moral support and prayers, but I see expectations from all of them, they all without saying it see me as a saviour to deliver them from the claws of poverty that had gripped us ever since we knew our names. Right now I feel like a failure, my mother is dying and there is not so much I can do to help her, the community health centre we had taken her, do not really have the basic facilities to take care of one as sick as my mother and in situations like this extended families rarely help because they all claim to be in problem too, well who can blame them anyway? In spite of all these, my family is a good Christian. My mother made sure she educated us on the person of Jesus Christ and how he would help us in due time but I have not really seen him help us in any way, even mother is dying but since mother says it’s the only reasonable thing to do in a world like ours, I took her word for it and believed her. So I kept praying that if there is actually a God somewhere he should save my mother who believed so much in him.
Onyinye left for her work as soon as we got Mother another plate of Eba and vegetables, we had to buy egg because meat cost more and besides we thought that would be more nutritious. On our way coming the man I help with his photocopying machine had sent word that if I didn’t come tomorrow I would lose my job and I am just so depressed, even though the man paid me peanuts I can’t afford to leave the place and here is mother with no one to stay with her. Onyinye’s boss would not allow her stay away for long because she is the only designer she has, all others had left because of her ill- temper. Nedu had only been here once since mother got sick, we don’t even know if he sleeps at home anymore. As I came out to get some fresh air from the foul smell in the ward, a thought came to me and I decided to see the doctor,
“Good morning sir, I was thinking if……..
“Are you in sane, Can’t you see I have a visitor here, please get out of my office” barked the doctor
I insisted and kept on saying that its urgent but he stood up, wanting to get me out of the way and the visitor looked at me as if to say young man respect yourself and wait your turn but the eyes turned out to be the eyes of my boss in warri, where I served.
“Good afternoon sir” I quickly say before the doctor threw me out and he didn’t get the chance to reply because I was already out the door. I stood there for five minutes rehearsing what I would tell the doctor, it was a matter of life and death, my mother was dying, perhaps she needed blood transfusion or drips or whatever they can do to make her get well, I wanted to offer to work in the hospital for no pay in as much as they would do something to make her get better because they lacked hands. Suddenly the door cracked open and the doctor invited me saying his visitor wanted to see me, I apologized to him that it was because of my mother’s health but he dismissed my apology telling his visitor how irresponsible I and my siblings are. I wonder where he got that from but I also know that when you are from a poor background people just treat you like a piece of trash like you willed to be poor.
“Nonso where in God’s name have you been?”
“I came back to my family when I didn’t get a job in Warri sir”
“To do what?” Well, that does not matter anymore, I have so much to tell you and I don’t have the time so just go get your bags and let’s get going”
“Sir….i rrrrr…….”
“Now what?”
“My mother is dying sir and I have to be with her”
“Your mother needs a doctor and not you, what have you been able to do for her since you ‘ve been with her?”
“Look, I will wait for you for fifteen minutes to go get a relative of yours whom I can hand over money to take your mother to the state hospital where she can be properly attended to, this is just a basic health centre not a fully equipped hospital.” The doctor nodded with a devilish grin on his face. it was later my boss told me that the doctor was a brother of his who had run away from home since he was fifteen.
Then I ran, how I ran
I ran the wildest run of my life, first to grab my bag, didn’t have much though, just a few rugged shirts and a pair of trousers, then I ran to grab Onyinye, I didn’t even get her madam’s permission, they were both scared, thinking Mother had passed out.
And that was it, I travelled with my boss that day who made me understand he had been looking for me for the past one year. I had to sell the phone I was using then to settle some of our incurred debts and the one I bought had battery issues; it’s off today and on tomorrow. Immediately there was a vacancy in the office where I served my boss recommended me to the Manager and started looking for me to take up the position but I could not be reached. Now, He said I should not worry that he just had to fix me up somewhere. He said it with so much certainty as if he was under obligation to help me. His reason being that I was a faithful Corp member who did his work, minded his business and would not refuse to take up assignments anytime he was called upon. He said he had reports from the members of staff that I worked with that I was diligent in all I did. Imagine! We didn’t even have a relationship back then, he took interest in me after I had left the place. He said the company needed young minds who would work and be honest with it.
Today, ten months after, I have been transferred to Enugu, not very far from my state because it’s a federal owned establishment and I can go see Mother on weekends. She has fully recovered from the illness and now pestering me to set her up with a small business but I told her to be patient, we would get there. I am a comfortable young man now, didn’t even know ladies can even be interested in me until I started working well and my complexion began to glow, I am not a womanizer and would never be, they come around me now that I am beginning to look like a fine young man, where were they when I had just a pair of trouser and drank Garri all day long. but I would like to settle down with one beautiful lady I met some months back, I hope to propose to her soon., God help me.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not paid in hundreds of thousands but I have never held the amount of my one month salary in hand before. When I took out my journal tonight to write on my experience for the past one year I see that even though I don’t really have a relationship with God like my mother, he has been good to me, I can’t believe my luck, mother says is God’s favour and I want to have that kind of relationship she has with God, knowing that, even if the world crumbles, everything would still be alright, I wish I had believed that long ago. The only conclusion I can make from all these is that IT’S NOT ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM, WHAT MATTERS IS THAT WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL DILIGENCE, WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT AND GIVE IT YOUR BEST, WITH GOD ON YOUR SIDE, YOU WILL OVERCOME ALL THE LIMITATIONS.
(THE END)
The Mirror…
“Really? You mean you are still going to stand here for a while after that episode in the house? David questioned his wife angrily
“Go on inside I will join you” she replied without looking up from the car side mirror.
David walked in briskly and took his seat as directed by the usher. He was still angry that his wife made him come late to church and worse still she is still standing out there re-tying the head gear that made them come so late. As the Sunday school was ongoing, he was fuming. “What is wrong with women anyway?” He thought, Shammah woke up before him, as far he could remember she was dressing up when he got into the bath and he still had to wait for her for twenty minutes after he finished dressing up. He doesn’t even know where to place this or the name to call this women phenomenon. Just as he was ruminating he saw a sister adjusting her skirt and touching up her face using the church slide windows, she couldn’t see people from outside but people could see her doing that.
David became disturbed, realizing that his wife had done the same before entering the church. What is it with women and mirrors, they spend so much time in front of it before they go out and still can’t but check themselves over again in anything that looks like mirror on their way out. Why must they check their reflection in the mirror or something close to a mirror every now and then? He hardly opened his manual, he checked if his wife was listening and saw that she was doing better than him, he looked her over again, she was undoubtedly beautiful, so attractive, he can’t help but glance once a while in her direction whenever they are together and when he sees people admiring her he always feel proud that he is the husband of such a beautiful one.
So if women know that they are beautiful why do they spend so much time in front of the mirror daily or why do they need to check a reflection of themselves in anything that looks like a mirror even if they have just been told how beautiful they look?
“The word of God is our mirror and we must constantly behold it every now and then as often as we can because our lives depend on it” that was the Youth Pastor speaking, Pastor Folasade Williams. David sat straight now because it was discussion time and anyone could be called upon to contribute. Her voice was authoritative so everyone paid attention.
“The more we behold the word of God which is our mirror the better we get; understanding God and his purposes for our lives. For instance, some men don’t ever get why women spend so much time in front of the mirror. Every woman loves to be beautiful and the more they stay in front of that mirror, removing, adding, adjusting whatever, is the confidence they need to get before they go out of the house. That confidence keeps them going, if a woman has done her job well in front of the mirror, she needn’t bother if anyone says anything contrary because she has checked her mirror and even at that some women still carry pocket mirrors in their bag, if anything goes contrary they check again to see if all is in order. So when we don’t behold our mirror daily the devil begin to feed us with lies, we begin to forget how real God is to us. The more you stay apart from the mirror the more you forget what God had done for you, what he told you about yourself and what he promised he is going to do for you. So next time you see any woman spending so much time in front of the mirror, let that remind you how much more you need to keep beholding the word of God and women should learn that lesson faster because the mirror is a woman’s friend, even my grandma at over 90 still has a mirror. Don’t allow devils lies to take over your life, go back and keep beholding your mirror.
When Pastor Williams finished speaking, the class bowed and prayed individually for she had unraveled a revelation, David kept singing songs of gratitude to God, it was him God came for, while he was yet thinking God brought him answers to his deep questions.
Don’t stop laughing…
There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family
Bible to her brother in another part of the country. “Is there
anything breakable in here?” asked the postal clerk. “Only the
Ten Commandments.” Answered the lady.
========
Somebody has said there are only two kinds of people in the
world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say,
“Good morning, Lord,” and there are those who wake up in the
morning and say, “Good Lord, it’s morning.”
========
A minister parked his car in a no-parking zone in a large city
because he was short of time and couldn’t find a space with a
meter. Then he put a note under the windshield wiper that read:
“I have circled the block 10 times. If I don’t park here, I’ll miss
my appointment. Forgive us our trespasses.”
When he returned, he found a citation from a police officer along
with this note “I’ve circled this block for 10 years. If I don’t
give
you a ticket I’ll lose my job. “Lead us not into temptation.”
========
There is the story of a pastor who got up one Sunday and
announced to his congregation: “I have good news and bad
news. The good news is, we have enough money to pay for our
new building program. The bad news is, it’s still out there in
your pockets.
Give me a sense of humor, Lord,
Give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some humor out of life,
And pass it on to other folk! Amen Culled fromwww.godsminute.com
Do have a beautiful week! And may you have something to make you smiling and laughing all week.
When Life throws you down….
One of the biggest challenges in Jason’s life was to relate with people, he was that kind of guy you never noticed whether he was in a place or not. Without exaggerating, he was the kind of person that could hardly say a paragraph in a day. Saying hello to anyone was a problem and if anyone said hi, the person would have gone have a mile before Jason decided whether to reply or not. Not because he was a snob, he did not just know how to carry on the shortest conversation with anybody. Fortunately, he has the good looks, speaks good English with a British accent and very neat, these qualities ordinarily will make people want to relate with him but it was the other way round.
All through his primary and secondary school, he never asked questions in class, seldom answered when he was asked but he always wrote the right things on his paper and came top of his class. While in the university, the status quo was maintained and no one really noticed him until he was pronounced as the best graduating student of his set.
On the contrary, what the few people who know him did not know was that Jason was a talker, while alone in his room, you would think he was talking to three to four people, switching roles and rehearsing how he would make a friend the following day but he always failed himself. By the time he got his first job, the world had become a virtual public and people could actually live on the social media like real people so Jason’s fears of relating with people was forgotten, he lived and practically did all online, having friends to chat with. Funnily, these were people whom Jason did not relate with as colleagues in the office, friends in church and in professional bodies but kept as contacts on social media anonymously.
Years down the line, as Jason rose in his career as a software programmer, he needed to hold talks and seminars regularly with companies in and outside the country and his fears resurrected from where he thought he had buried them. His colleagues and associates could not fathom why Jason could not explain the procedure he had used to design a particular program to people who needed his services urgently. At a time people began to doubt his credibility of the software programs when he could not explain the procedure, but later, they saw for themselves what the problem was.
More so, prominent organizations and agencies wanted to have him as speakers on seminars and youth shows to mentor youths and teach them to be successful but he had to turn most of it down, the ones he saw that he could not turn down, he refused to show up as planned, sending apologies to many. Whenever anyone got close to help, he took on the heels and ran for his life so people did not see him as only shy but weird and some began to avoid him as he was also avoiding people.
Titilola, a cute and caring colleague of his, who realized the predicament arranged with the management of his company to get a communication tutor for him, because being a brain behind the mysteries he was designing as a software, he needed to overcome his communication problem. But the communicator expert gave up on him after two years of trying to get him to talk. Titilola took it up from there and every one could see that there was a connection between these two but Jason became worse, the inability to engage people in conversations has become normal to him overtime, but not being able to talk with Titilola was miserable for him, this was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Every morning he planned on how he was going to share his bottled up emotions, how he was going to tell her that he has never found anyone so beautiful and how he cannot stop thinking about her. He planned how he was going to make her his only confidant, how she was going to be the only one closest to him because no one has ever been. He rehearsed ‘God knows how many’ times, how he was going to share his childhood: how he grew up with his father, a very hardworking man who lived alone with his son in a four bedroom duplex.
They hardly saw, because he got up so early and came back so late at night. His aunt was the one who brought him up but as soon as he was five the dad told her they could manage and told her to leave. Jason remembered how he and the aunt had wept, finding it hard to leave him alone but the dad had ordered him to behave himself and that was what he had actually done ever since “go to your room and behave yourself” that was all.
It was the aunt that told him how his mother had died at his birth which had greatly affected his dad’s life, it was later, Jason realized his dad blamed him for his mother’s death. As much as he would have preferred, his father did not want to have much to do with him, he wanted his wife back. And all he did was to make sure he never lacked anything, he had his own driver, there was a cleaner and chef in the house, so all Jason did was to eat and go to school. From time to time, his father would only ask what he needed in terms of school fees and clothing and upkeep money. So this was how Jason’s life was shaped, the only one he could call family shut everyone out of his life because of his grief.
Jason did not even know it was abnormal not to relate with people, he thought it was a way of life that people didn’t want to be disturbed, that everyone should just keep to themselves, until people started having issues with him in school, saying he is snobbish, egoistic, proud and pretentious. But they did not know that he wanted to able to do this too but just didn’t know how. He found it hard to even talk with the communicator expert his company had hired for him and his rules were just too many. He was so sure that with Titi his fate might actually change but his problem was how an adult can tell another: please teach me how to communicate.
When the management saw that they could no longer put up with Jason’s shell life, another programmer was employed and within months he began travelling round countries, enjoying all the benefits Jason was to be enjoying. Jason got angry with this and left to stand on his own, he had the money and the brain power but because of this same problem of his, his company; Jason’s plus folded up. It was when he saw Titi’s wedding invitation’s website link on his Facebook page that he knew his life was going to come to a miserable end if he didn’t help himself. His aunt being the only one he could talk to as family became his succor, he cried out his heart to her knowing that at thirty eight if nobody came to his help he was going to die irrelevant.
Aunt Marie could not but grief with him, she even blamed herself for leaving him with his father, she did not know he had all of these problems going on. All these years, Jason had hid behind his smile. Not knowing what to do, she told Jason to start writing all he wanted to say to people on paper in a form of diary, no matter how weird it sounds, he had to start from somewhere. When Jason wanted to give excuses, Aunt Marie became furious with him, challenging him:
“if you end up this way, you have yourself to blame, Jason, look at yourself, God has provided everything you will ever need on earth, fine! Blame me for leaving you or blame your mother for dying or your father for bringing you up in the most unloving manner but what have you done about it, sit there, waiting for a miracle? Jason, can’t you see how God has been faithful to you, providing you help all the way but you rejected them all, as a believer, you know God does not leave nor forsake his children, you have that in your bible which you strongly believe in, so it is not about God letting you down but you letting God down. Imagine the number of lives you could have touched, people you could have influenced by your successful life but you did not want to live your comfortable shell, you preferred to stay there, I can’t see much of efforts on your part here but only intentions and wishes.All is gradually slipping away from you now and if you don’t break this hold on you, you will have yourself to blame for this.”
Aunt Marie had never spoken to him like that before but the words sank, he had to stay there a few days before deciding what he was going to do. The rudiments of greeting people started with Aunt Marie, it was awkward at first but by asking for God’s help and confessing Psalms 121, he began to improve. When he returned to his home, he greeted his neighbour for the first time in years and by evening, the man brought his family members to say hi to him.
He enrolled himself in a communication program learning how to listen, relate with individuals, groups and communicate publicly. He took this program so serious his tutors thought he was over serious but he told them he had to pay severely for what he had lost. When he applied for his former position at the company he worked for, he was turned down and many who offered to accept him wanted to pay less than he was worth so he gave it a try to re-openJason’s Plus and that was when his breakthrough started. Through his program he connected with human resources agents who helped him with the recruitment and marketed his products and capabilities. At the company’s third year, even his former employers wanted to have him as a consultant but he was too busy for that, they could only join his mentoring program. All the while he continued with his program of communication because he didn’t want to lose it. Even when his tutors told him it was okay to withdraw, he still employed a personal trainer because he did not want to take chances with God’s gift over his life.
At forty three, when he was getting married to thirty-two year old Daniela, the one he “wooed” all by himself but with God’s leading anyway, he gave everyone a free copy of their book titled IF LIFE THROWS YOU DOWN, BLAME YOURSELF FOR NOT GETTING UP” authored by Daniela and Jason Olabode.