Thought Picnic: Our patriarch at 82

Trying to be good

Today brought a rush of emotions that caught me between a sense of duty and one of common humanity with decency. More promising for me was that I am persuadable even as some would consider me rather obstinate to the point of being quite obstreperous.

It is not my nature, I just seek a place where I am not under mental stress or strain, avoidable situations are just that, avoidable except for extenuating circumstances demanding some different action.

An occasion to speak

Today, the Patriarch of the Akintayo family, my father clocked 82 and that comes with some challenges presented by age and circumstance, that I find myself thinking the blessing of old age comes with its share of misery as you watch people you once knew become persons of the past in their passing.

Then there something else that appears to engage too strongly, that which time does not seem to heal, relationships founded on conflict and friction, issues unresolved but allowed to fester. You are asked to let bygones be bygones unaddressed, if only it were that simple.

The prayers of expiation?

Yet, someone can whisper in your ear and advise gently that you review a situation. Whether it is serendipity or propinquity, you are soon in conversation with the stress easing away for some gladness if for a moment from both sides, the satisfaction that maybe there is a higher cause that can give all a new lease, for time is not on our sides as it once was.

To my dad, a very happy birthday, the renewal of strength, the comfort of knowing that he is loved daily even through the difficult issues and the best times of long life without sorrow. Sometimes, I think the prayers of old parents are at one time deep and moving and then maybe in expiation of the things they did long ago that their children find hard to forgive and forget. God bless you, dad.