Blessed and fortunate is who I am

The Quiet Event

I have been asked several times what I am doing for my birthday, and the honest truth is, I am not doing much; perhaps only if something happens that I probably have no part in. The sense of occasion seems to overwhelm me; I would prefer to withdraw into solitude rather than participate in some celebration.

The last significant event surrounding my birthday was when I turned 49. It was all arranged by a young friend, and there were many guests, most of whom were acquaintances rather than close friends. As the celebration reached its peak at my friend's apartment, I withdrew to rest. I was already in dreamland when the last guest departed.

Yet each revolution around the sun does call for a celebration. I mark each one with thankfulness and gratitude. I am profoundly fortunate and blessed, which I recognise without dispute or argument.

A Dreadful Condition Loomed

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 2024, I was advised to commence active treatment. I told the doctors I had other plans: I was going on holiday, and it was only after returning that I would begin to consider what lay ahead.

My plan at that time was to spend time with Brian, but it was also a difficult period. I was reading correspondence between doctors about my case, and besides learning of the cancer diagnosis over a week before meeting with the specialist (due to mishandling of my records), I also saw that their chatter suggested the cancer was malignant.

To a layperson like me, I did not realise that all cancers are considered malignant in medical terms. Though in reality, the meaning wasn’t far off: it was evil, malevolent, dangerous, invasive, and possibly aggressive as well.

Batting and Battling in the Mind

Not only was the prospect daunting, but it was also frightening. I had to take control of the thoughts rushing through my mind and fill my listening with sermons about healing and living. Sometimes a creeping cloud would interfere, emboldening thoughts I was trying hard not to entertain: the idea that this cancer, which I could neither see nor feel, had the capacity to kill.

I fought off these invasions of morbidity and mortality, encouraging myself that I would see the better end of this ordeal. I would walk through the valley of the shadow and fog of cancer to emerge into the brilliant light of the sun, into green pastures and beside still waters.

The goodness and mercy of God, along with faith in the same, restored my soul and gave me hope. It was not going to be a journey without support for both the good times and the bad.

Looking to the Best Ahead

As it turned out, after completing radiotherapy, I took an extended sick leave and spent seven weeks in Cape Town with Brian. I had wished to celebrate this occasion with him; my hopes did not turn into concrete plans, but I do not view that as unfortunate. Opportunities once lost can be reclaimed, even after a temporary setback.

We will do more of this, not just in visits and fleeting moments, but also in the near future of living together, where absence would be reserved for the mundane and routine daily matters, such as work and university.

Every morning will begin with a smile, a kiss, and a prayer, and every night with gratitude, a kiss, and joy in our hearts. We live to tell better stories, and my mouth is full of testimonies of such stories.

Thought Picnic: Welcome November

A month of strain

Arriving in November with a bit of dogged insomnia, I literally spent the hours of reluctant wakefulness thinking about the month that had just passed. If I did not have a memory or a penchant for dates, seasons, and anniversaries, it probably would not have mattered.

For a long time, October was mainly a month of many celebrations, first of births of at least 10 in family and relations, then a wedding anniversary and four years ago added a death that doubled in the past week.

Not that I want to attach anything to a month, for time is more a structure for the reckoning of humanity that exists in a framework of unfathomable eternal past and future, the present being a sliding indicator on the scale of our limitless universe.

Significance in insignificance

The vastness beyond our world where the light of stars probably extinct long ago still appears to us in expanses of lightyears is just awesome. We are both significant here and almost insignificant as we attempt to chart galaxies we can only imagine exist but can’t reach limited by the knowledge and expertise we deploy in that research.

We lay our footprints in the sands of time and in the memories of how the relationships we forged are remembered for good or for bad. Yet, we only have the present with us as we progress into a future near and far with the hope that whatever becomes our stories are evidenced in having made the telling of them better. Welcome to November 2020 and the wonder it holds.

Thought Picnic: May there be cause beyond this

An act withdrawn

The message is hard to convey in words so the act is what is left to express a view that is both of sadness and steely determination.

It is a selfish mind that thinks of self first and others later, yet as a pall of unhappiness blots out the light at the end of the tunnel, the journey suddenly seems much longer and the groping in the darkness is the hoping against hope that each step forward leads to some escape.

The message is the act of not sending a message when it mattered, a whole of debate and disagreement, the mind spilt into a duel of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde contesting the will of desire and dissent.

Dissent won in the end, the situation is not made any easier by the fact that another year may have to pass in the brooding and sulking.

Losing battles and winning wars

Yet, like one would realise as always, they may be impervious to reason, reasoning, the reasonable or reasonableness as one battles again against forces unfussed or unconcerned whilst stuck in the quagmire of their own making.

To relent, one must not as page after page of the saga is written until it rings a bell somewhere in the annals of reflection and consideration for a better and alternate course. That call was not made and will not be made.

It is a battle for familial sanity and a war for right thinking, but like many wars fought long before, generals might be lost for all the battles it takes to win the war.

May there be hope, may there be the promise, may there be the possibility and may there eventually be the mind to put all this in the past and the many days to celebrate the better of each and every one of us.

May there be happy cause soon to make the calls that one should make for love and more that matters than just this.

Nigeria: Rightfully pouring scorn on Nigeria @ 50

Not surprised at all

I was quite amused to read that foreign firms operating in Nigeria had not responded to requests [1] to sponsor the Nigeria @ 50 celebrations.

In what might well read as sour grapes the Director-General of the organising committee for the celebration of Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee celebration somewhat narrated his ordeal on the day that the so-called celebrations were to commence.

I for one would not blame the foreign firms in any way for refusing to put their face or money behind this jamboree for so many reasons that we have not honestly recognised about their reticence.

A failure of priorities and importance

A well organised setup would have had the preparations for such an auspicious occasion well underway, probably a year before regardless of the time of flux that accompanied the illness of President Umaru Yar’Adua; Nigeria was going to be 50 regardless.

If the ship of state had not been serving the intents and purposes of people who were out for their own gain rather than for the progress of the country, the plans the country had for these celebrations would probably have impressed the foreign firms enough to engage them to be interested and be willing to contribute to the events.

No change still

I wrote at the end of July [2] that there was a lack of preparedness for the celebrations and apart from the money that has been doled out by the government which might well end up in the pockets of rogues, everywhere else seems to be well into organising something apart from the government itself.

Just under 3 weeks to the celebrations, we still cannot find a web presence of the celebrations being organised by the government or its organs of publicity.

It is with utter shame that I recall that Ghana had their website up months before their celebrations in March 2007 and catalogued a complete year of events just to celebrate their coming of age.

Typically Nigerian

Nigeria however wallows in its penchant for bumbling and unpreparedness with some official crying foul when in fact they have nothing to show for their ability to manage, organised and persuade, expecting miracles to happen and fate to rain success on their parades.

I am glad the foreign firms have occupied themselves with other activities rather then read the beggarly missive they received in March, they should have gone further in pouring scorn on the whole project, if only to awaken a sense of urgency and responsibility.

It is a shame that the official does not seem to have realised that a clear message was being sent to his committee and the government that if they cannot see signs of organisation, professionalism, seriousness, determination and probity, not one cent would escape their grasp to that fiesta of the debauched.

Nothing to salvage but shame

One can only contemn the organisers who after realising their difficulty in raising funds did not raise this matter earlier and find ways to appeal to the better elements of our society to prevail on these firms but allowed for this to drag on until the very eve of the events at which time literally nothing can be salvaged of the generosity of the firms or the reputations of the organisers and the government.

Hopefully, Nigerians would see beyond the rueful cry and have in mind the very fundamental saying, “If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.”

They might just pull it off but it all could have been better done but in Nigeria of who little is expected, much less is desired – we would celebrate in spite of the government and their representatives.

Sources

[1] How foreign firms scorned Nigeria @ 50, by Kaigama « Vanguard (Nigeria)

[2] Akin: Nigeria: Utter unpreparedness for the golden jubilee

[3] Ghana@50 - Official Website For The 50th Independence Anniversary Celebration Of Ghana