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.

Annoyed and disappointment doesn't capture it

One is certainly not amused

It probably did not come as a great shock because he is wont to acting with impunity and a sense of superciliousness that has rarely been challenged to the point that it is indeed impunity.

It is his prerogative whatever he decides to do, the affairs he decides to have, and the ones he decides to commit to matrimony, unholy as it is, in every sense and every way. Here we are still mourning the passing of one and put into a situation supplanted by a complete lack of consideration, I am quite incensed.

The name we all share is not in the exclusive preserve of one, not even the patriarch can use the name without an eye on posterity. We have to carry this name forward in deed and in seed. When I was asked on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the extreme how disappointed I was with him, without hesitation, I said 10. There is much to write and it will be written.

Blog - The parable of Henry VIII

Thought Picnic: Vulnerability offering opportunity

Finally answering the call

I relented this morning when the phone rang; it was the Patriarch who I’ve been avoiding for the past month.

Whilst there is pleasure in conversation it veers too frequently to matters that concern others more than the principal.

Every reticence on those matters seems to embolden the resolve to alter the course of one’s life and decisions to ends that might well satisfy the desires and requirements of the protagonists but those things are not in my purview at all.

Taking liberties

There was a time an understanding that whilst advice was welcome the decisions were chiefly mine, the use of English to narrow the Power-Distance Index allowing for very frank talk should have put paid to this but one might well have been playing soft ball in situations requiring a bit more assertiveness.

The annoying if not bordering on the despicable ploy has been to use the unfortunate times of vulnerability as the opportunity to push their agenda.

There is a case for companionship and care when ill but that should not result in a permanent relationship, worse still was to cite the survivors at bereavement as the warning to act.

My view of friends

There are some rights I can exercise without the need to consult anyone, as refusing to take calls I do not consider encouraging or helpful, the decision to terminate communication if subtle entreaties do not yield the desired adjustments.

One has been reliably informed that friends prevent me from the responsibility of marriage and family – I beg to differ – rather friends respect my views and do not interfere with decisions I have made because they think they know better – besides, I have the friends around me, the more concerned have not been seen in decades.

Despite this, I am

They all mean well, parents are what they are, parents; siblings are who they are, siblings but none have good enough excuses to meddle in my affairs beyond where I have given latitude for them to roam.

So, I answered the call and as usual an antagonistic accusation came forth to which I have adopted the golden rule of silence; this could first appear to be an broken connection but it also helps to move the conversation on – if I had to say what I had in mind, my heart would have been out at the repair shop.

We are back to the fundamentals again – accept my choices or lose your voices in my affairs.

Thought Picnic: Home is far from that home

An answer 40 years on

One of those incidental conversations with the patriarch brought some insight into why he did not go into practice but remained a corporation man.

As a community person with dependant relations he felt he did not outlay to branch out on his own when he had to consider the responsibilities he had and the way demands were made on the resources he had.

One had always wondered why as an accountant and a brilliant one at that, why, and the answer came in a conversation that has become the mainstay of the discussions for the past year.

Being too good for company

Here, one is, a single man who has not been in a serious relationship for 11 years after 7 years of wonderful partnership, one sometimes wonders if the residual effects of that break-up has left indelible scars that any new prospect has not had the commitment desired.

Having lived alone for 15 years, it is quite a big ask to expect that the comforts of individuality would be jettisoned for the prospect of some tenancy based of whatever relationship that could be conjured in the minds of those that will it.

Indeed, the need for help in very vulnerable times is essential but that need should not as others desire become the impetus for partnership, but that view does not gel with him.

At least this time, he half conceded that he could only give advice the choices were left to the principals affected and the conversation developed further.

Pretensions to a weakening link

Over half of one’s life has been spent in Europe and most especially the last 20 years, whilst there is an affinity for things Nigerian, one must not pretend to greater integration with Nigeria than one really is.

The continuing fight has been the struggle to be accepted there even if one does not imbibe most of the nuances, the idea that the final years would be best spent in Nigeria is wishful at best – there exists no such inclination and Nigeria does not need to subscribe to some Saviour-complex where the Moses from abroad has come to lead the people out of slavery.

Whilst one can comment extensively on a whole range of issues as to be so affected and concerned about them, there has to be the resignation to the fact that sometimes some Nigerian norms and mores would just never be fully understood and appreciated.

Can change be instigated from afar? Maybe not. Is the society ready for change commandeered from within but spearheaded from returnees? Only if it would not breed animosity, resentment and unrelenting opposition.

In grave doubt

We can only share what we have and hope that in the end common-sense would prevail – there are no life goals detailed for Nigeria and besides for all sorts of reasons and most especially that of health and the maintenance of what one has by the help of good medical services – visits are opportunities but residence is completely out of the question.

In some ways, one is not convinced that a visit would not breed an ulterior motive of keeping one there, a foreboding and anticipation which belies that feeling of not trusting fully the goodwill of interested parties leaves one considering a neutral meeting place where no one has undue influence to marshal an agenda detrimental to the other.

Between a patriarch and his children

Those rotten seeds

I cannot begin to imagine the loss I have suffered from not communicating with my father for years until recently.

It is unfortunate that seeds sown a long time ago in my youth created an almost immoveable tree that stood in the way of sight, contact and interaction.

There was a time about 25 years ago when I tried to address this with my father with the force of the number of siblings by trying to move the context of our relationship beyond that of provision to one of love and care but the situation deteriorated rapidly soon afterwards.

A failed son of successful parents

I was suffering in my academic work and at the same time, a son of successful accountant and a long-term school principal, I could not run to them with my failures and the true Nigerian parentage style, I was to learn my lessons get pull myself up by the boots.

I was fortunate to have other people my parents had mentored who had suffered serious failure and bounced back owing great gratitude to my parents; they took me out of the rut and helped give me a purpose, an aim, a goal and a path to new success.

My parents were indirectly involved by reason of work they had laid down before, but they could not take direct credit for the success that began to come my way.

However, I still owe a good deal of what forms my character and principles to my parents, my father especially who still stands as a tower of achievement and reasonableness that has been honed through the years.

Rebuilding relationships

When we finally got communicating again, we did not dwell on any of the issues of the past, we just started off on a new race and began to build relationships anew drawing on his wealth of experience and the shared times of living with my parents that lasted just about 20 years.

I maintain a unique kind of place in the family hierarchy, my father is the patriarch of the clan and he shoulders more responsibilities than he should as others who rely on him seem to shirk their responsibilities for the chief.

As the first-born and by far the oldest of his children before my sister arrived almost 5 years after, there are expectations, many expectations, one of which would not be fulfilled much as many desire it – I am already in enough knots than to think of tying the knot – just a fact of life as it stands.

My siblings and daddy

There are aspects of his patriarchal domain that seem to be exercised on my siblings which I have escaped, but my siblings no matter how much younger and how much familiar he is with their circumstances need a pleasant fatherly ear rather than a commander’s orders to be present, available and acquiescing.

A patriarch is free to rule his roost, but a patriarch that is a father to many needs to discriminate between those who serve by reason of his nominal status and those he bore by reason of procreation.

It is not only a case of blood being thicker than water; it is a matter of relationships that are cultivated with the finesse of a scalpel rather than one cobbled together with a mallet. The mallet would just not suffice for the children as it might for others.

They are grown-up now

One can understand that a father expects loyalties, but my siblings are grown-up respectable persons with their families and issues, they cannot continue to be treated as kids even though they were kids with kid’s needs, desires and compulsions.

It would appear there is work to be done in bringing the nest of familial interests back into some sort of harmony and agreement.

My position in the family confers the right to order people around but that would not be the smartest thing to do, in fact, it has never been my way of doing things – I listen, I confer, I encourage and hopefully offer a sympathetic perspective to help child appreciate father and hopefully help father understand child.

He has amazing memories

I still have my relationship building situation and I am happy that our conversations have such range which I would cover in another blog – who would have thought my father was some sort of activist in the late 60s?

Well, I have done much with reading up and understanding my history, my father helps clarify the issues that are confusing but most of all, despite all the negative experiences he had of living in the UK in the 60s, he recollects fondly the ways in which he was integrated and understanding of the environment he was in.

Why would anyone ever be in schism with their father? It just happens and it can take a long while for things to get sorted out – it really can.

The wonder of a man and his maid(en)

Too wonderful for me

I can only reflect on these sayings of the man of Proverbs.

From the King James Version – Proverbs 30:18-19

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

The first two are elements of nature and still a matter of wonder, the soaring of the eagle and the time it took for man to master the science and art of flight which still fills me with a bit of wonder, as for the serpent on a rock, we do not have a vehicle that glides over terrain the way the serpent does.

The way of a ship in the midst of the sea is now a no-brainer except when you lose power for satellite navigation and you have not learnt to use the sextant – but for people of those times – getting from one place to another mostly using sails still remains a wonder of seamanship.

The warmth of companionship

The last however is a dynamic that still defies explanation, what is between the man and his woman is just not something you can get instruments out to measure.

I learnt years ago that one should never interfere in that dynamic, it is a force that can be both overpowering and endearing, I have had opportunity to observe the Prince and his Princess, the husband and the wife, the boyfriend and the girlfriend, the boy and the girl and always been overcome with wonder.

Yesterday, I was out to Puerto Rico, one of the coastal towns of Gran Canaria where the ode to the built-environment reads like a thousand stanzas of concrete verse. All the hills built into with white beautiful and ugly hotels just because Europeans of temperate and arctic climes seek warmth in the sun on a European island as far South of Europe as possible.

Big brother

As I walked back with the bus stop with ice-cream cone in hand, he said, “Would you like an ice-cream”, she said, “Oh! Yes, please”. They were probably in their sixties and full of fun – the Prince was playing big-brother, it looked and sounded so nice, though I did not expect to see them skipping hand-in-hand to the beach.

Playmates

Then, you wonder why the older generations go to dance classes, I could answer that question – they were dancing the night away – waltzing, fox-trotting, tangoing and whatever makes ballroom dancing exciting.

The decorum of this kind of dancing sweeps away from sight the grotesque antics of embarrassing middle-aged dancers. The Prince and Princess were playmates – I could not dance with myself, I need to consider dancing lessons too.

Protector

Walking through the nature reserve of Maspalomas, one can walk the dunes bare-footed but on the firmer ground of dried plants with footpaths to negotiate, there are dangers. Double-sided prickly disc-like seeds which adhere firmly to your shoes or sandals – the preferred footwear in those places – so, this couple were on an adventure to encounter pain when I warned them of the dangers.

The Prince answered back gruffly, obviously slighted by the fact that I may have pointed out that his was leading his Princess into danger. The Protector was not really being smart. Maybe afterwards, after picking out the barbs from her soles, kissing it better might salve the pain – I interfered.

Patriarch

The restaurant serves a buffet, which means people have to walk around the food tables to get what they like. In most cases, they walk around, have brief chats about the food and then make their choices before returning together to their tables.

However, there were some Princes who were too princely to walk around, their Princesses did all the running around and served their masters who almost expressed impatience for the lateness of the plate and dismissively waited for the plates to be cleared. The man does have a maid here, reminds me of a cheeky comment someone made when he asked if I had laid the maid, (talking about my cleaner) some people can never attain comportment. Oh! There were quite a few Patriarchs in the house and these are Europeans.

Partners

They were looking for the beach promenade and had walked around in circles till someone decided to ask questions – they even had a 5-month old boy in the pram shielded from the sun because you could not really apply sun-tan lotion on the skin of a toddler.

In fact, it was he, who asked the question about directions and I found out that unlike the commonly accepted view that the men never ask for directions, in this dynamic, it was the lady who would never ask for directions.

They shared the joy of helping each other; he pushed the pram through the difficult terrain of pavements without ramps for wheelchairs or trolleys as we walked to the promenade and all the way down to the Playa del Ingles beach where we parted ways. The Prince and Princess were partners.

A-Partners

The last night, he literally wailed as she began to put a distance between herself and him by running. He said, “You find their jokes funnier than mine”. Any Princess would be to rid of such a pathetic Prince. Somehow, there is still a dynamic at work, there is still an attraction that manages to tolerate the insecurity, but would this go on for much longer? The Prince and Princess were beginning to look like A-Partners.

A-partners, coined by the Sun newspaper to describe couples who get on well after separation.