Crumbs In Our Wake

Crumbs in Our Wake

As we walk the quiet streets of our cities in the assumed isolation of our seemingly contented spaces, we so easily and unknowingly leave crumbs of who and what we are in our wake.

Others, like pigeons of the air, swoop down and peck away at those crumbs, a meal provided by the divine hand of providence, in whom we can scarcely believe cares enough for us, even when neither bird nor beast worries, for provision does indeed come.

These crumbs tell other stories, the ones we cannot let go of because unanswered questions remain. It is unlikely we would ever get the opportunity to satisfy the curiosity that one strange encounter brings into view, even as we try to mind our own business.

A Chance Encounter

Much earlier today, a lady was coming towards me, pushing a pram. I presumed she was a grandmother, and not a walking miracle of Sarah begetting Isaac after the incredulity of her laughter at the idea that she could still bear a child.

She was adjusting a paper windmill, or pinwheel, and for that alone the expectation was that a child, reclined in the pram, was being entertained or distracted with the novelty of a spinning attraction. Had small talk ensued, it would have been about seeing a pleasantly focused, smiling toddler, whilst commending the grandmother for keeping the child at peace.

The Doll in the Pram

As I walked past, I looked to see a grinning face, teeth showing with the gaiety of the widest smile possible, even legs being thrown up in the air in acknowledgement of the object positioned for their attention. Nothing of the sort; the passenger in the ornate perambulator was a doll, unmistakably the plastic rigidity of a lifeless presence that only a doll could muster.

There was no need for a double take, but one did vacillate between concern and sympathy. Concern that this story was one of mental illness brought into the public sphere; the wish for a child now given over to the taking of a doll for an outing, with all the presence of mind to furnish that doll with the trimmings that might accompany a child.

Sympathy and Grace

Then came sympathy for whatever the tragic story might be, such as the loss of a grandchild remembered daily in this sad display of grief that I had now uncomfortably witnessed. A daily upset for her, and a lingering one for me, for how do you ask the pertinent questions?

There might be another angle, though, beyond concern or sympathy, this being eccentricity, and we all have some of that in us in different measures. Whether this be suffering expressed so vividly, or an expression too quickly misunderstood, the reality of a person's private world is not that private when brought into the public sphere.

A Good Samaritan Nature

Yet even this might not begin to cover the spectrum of life experiences that became that momentary observation, for any person's story is barely told in a brief encounter. Rather, what we know in part might define them too narrowly in comparison to who they really are.

And if we were to ignore the things we see, we could, in that very mindset, miss the moment when someone in distress could do with our Good Samaritan nature and our help.

Yet, in the crumbs that the pigeons do get to feed on, is a complete meal not better than manna, without a care for what tomorrow brings? There, but for the grace of God, go we, so that whatever story we tell might be a blessing to another.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content.

Thought Picnic: Success, Suffering, and the System That Fails Both

The Illusion of Success

Sometimes, success appears to be a façade amid emotional turmoil, the vulnerabilities that are part of life's struggle that no one else sees. There is an assumption that if you have the means and cachet to buy anything, then you are suitably supplied to purchase your salvation.

Society simply does not recognise the struggle of the successful as legitimate. There is little sympathy for those who appear to have everything, and this dismissal creates a terrible sense of isolation in which high-achievers quickly learn that their struggles will not be taken seriously.

Misunderstanding Resilience

There is also a misguided understanding of resilience. Indeed, many of us do exhibit herculean feats of resilience against adversity, fighting storms of life that threaten to overwhelm us, but something inside refuses to give. Belief, faith, grit, or sheer guts: we are bowed but not broken, attacked but never defeated. We become the narrative of possibilities that once seemed insurmountable.

Yet this very resilience can become a trap. High-achievers are often driven by perfectionism, a relentless internal standard that demands excellence in all things. Mental illness does not respond to willpower or determination in the way that professional challenges do.

You cannot work harder to overcome depression. You cannot manoeuvre your way out of bipolar disorder. For someone whose identity is built on achievement and competence, seeking help feels like failure, an admission that you are not as capable as you believed yourself to be.

Recent Tragedies

Two stories in recent times have got me thinking that many mental health struggles are barely addressed or are given the stiff-upper-lip treatment of “you'll pull through as you always do”. We give just enough space not to interfere, and then the news drops: those stalwarts of stoicism, or what appeared to be that, have taken their own lives.

Robert Carradine, 71, died by hanging last week; he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I am in South Africa, and I have just read the news that Ian von Memerty, 61, who was Zimbabwe-born and a South African entertainer who hosted some popular television shows, had died by his own hand in Johannesburg. He had long written about the desire to take his own life.

The Reality Behind Success

None of this brings any comfort because these are successful men who had tasted the kinds of worldly success that many could not even dare to dream of, and yet it is their demons that have driven them beyond the edge of despair to suicide. The fact that these men are quite close to my age range also indicates that you probably do not grow out of the things that ail you.

Success often brings its own form of isolation. As you rise in your field, the pool of people who can truly understand your experience shrinks. Your old friends may feel the distance growing. Your new peers may be competitors rather than confidants.

The high-achiever becomes trapped in a gilded cage, surrounded by admirers but profoundly alone. This loneliness compounds mental health struggles, leaving fewer people to turn to, fewer spaces where vulnerability is possible, and fewer relationships where you are seen as a whole person rather than as your achievements.

There are also practical fears that make seeking help feel dangerous. Will your employer question your ability to perform? Will clients lose confidence in you? Will colleagues see you differently?

Despite progress in mental health awareness, significant stigma remains in professional environments. For high-achievers whose identities are deeply intertwined with their professional success, the risk feels existential.

When the System Fails You

Moreover, even when they overcome these barriers and seek help, they often find the available support inadequate for their specific needs. Therapists may struggle to understand the unique pressures of high achievement: the constant scrutiny, the isolation that comes with leadership, the weight of others' expectations.

The two times I have used therapy, because I presented none of the symptoms of depression, suicide, or a mental health crisis, it was felt I was trying to abuse the service. Yet, I had a compelling narrative. I was recovering from cancer, mounting debt meant I was about to lose my home, and my status was rock bottom.

Surely, with such a catastrophic change in life, I was a candidate for therapy. I guess because I had a modicum of coping mechanisms and I was too articulate for my situation, only shocking assertiveness could pierce into the needed support framework.

The scheduling demands of high-achievement careers often conflict with traditional therapy models, yet their chaotic schedules are often part of what is driving their mental health crisis.

Bridging the Gap

It is impossible to tell how much help, consideration, or support Carradine and von Memerty got through their struggles. For their survivors, bridging the gap between the sorrow they feel and appreciating the release that death brought to the suffering of their beloved ones is something you cannot begin to fathom.

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge is the myth of self-sufficiency that high-achievers internalise. They have succeeded through determination, intelligence, and hard work. This creates a belief that they should be able to handle anything, including their own mental health.

Cultural narratives about success emphasise individual agency and resilience, celebrating the self-made person who refused to give up or give in. These narratives leave little room for vulnerability, little space for acknowledging that sometimes, despite all your strength and capability, you need help.

A Personal Reflection

Even with my encounters with suicidal ideation, which I have written about as recently as a month ago, my only prayer still is never to be presented with no other option but to end it all. This is not said from any position of strength, ability, or capacity; rather, it is a recognition of human frailty and vulnerability. We are faced daily with a spectrum of mortality, but for the grace of God, there go we.

Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental shift in how we think about success and mental health. We need to recognise that achievement does not immunise against suffering, that success can indeed be part of what drives mental health crises rather than protecting against them. Until we can create space for high-achievers to be vulnerable, to admit to struggling, to seek help without fear of judgement or professional consequences, we will continue to lose talented, accomplished people to the silent epidemic of mental illness.

The deaths of people like Robert Carradine and Ian von Memerty should serve as a stark reminder that success is no protection against despair. The answer is that success and suffering are not opposites. They can, and often do, coexist. Recognising this uncomfortable truth is the first step towards ensuring that achievement does not become a prison from which the only escape seems to be death.

May their once-bothered souls rest in eternal peace.

Blog - Suicide When Academia Forgets Its Humanity (January 2026)

Blog - Thought Picnic: I think I need therapy (March 2011)

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Fentanyl Appearing for Pain, Pills, and Policy

Within the depths of pain

In some ways, I probably have a very high pain threshold, but in late 2009, my pain tolerance was completely overwhelmed when I had cancer in my left foot, with fungating tumours and blackened skin lesions, both deadly and deathly.

Standard painkillers (paracetamol) and stronger medication (tramadol) failed to relieve the pain. It was so intense that I could not put my foot down without crying. In the hospital, I was given morphine, but that only lasted two days before I was vomiting everything.

The Search for Effective Pain Relief

Then came OxyContin, but I was not given enough of it. The nurses seemed to be rationing it even as I begged for relief. However, when I was discharged after 18 nights in the hospital, my pain medication was adjusted. Multiple types of pain relief were administered to target different aspects of the pain.

Paracetamol, oxycodone, and a fentanyl transdermal patch; all that, and pain still persisted, sometimes taking centre stage. I resorted to almost hysterical laughter to release endorphins as a form of palliative coping.

After another consultation, I told the doctor I was still experiencing pain. In his view, my medication should have been sufficient; it was not. He doubled the dose of the fentanyl patch, and only then did I achieve what might be called pain relief.

The Path to Recovery

I was on pain medication from late September 2009, and by the end of January 2010, the tumours were gone. I had fresh, pink skin on the soles of my feet, a miracle of medicine, but it involved gruelling treatment, including chemotherapy and its dreadful side effects.

The pain had gone by March, so I removed the fentanyl patch. Big mistake. I salivated excessively, spat out mouthfuls of saliva, and became severely diarrhoeic. I had to reapply the patch. From this, I learned I needed to wean myself off it gradually. I kept it on for twice as long while gradually reducing the dose by halving the patch at each change.

It took three months to fully stop using the patch, long after I no longer needed any sort of pain relief.

Understanding Fentanyl's Role

Without fentanyl for this level of pain, life would have been unbearable, almost not worth living. One day, the patch fell off. Not knowing you could cover it with a transdermal sticker or plaster to keep it in place until the new patch was ready, I was laughing deliriously. My friend thought I had lost my mind; it was a protective mechanism. If I hadn’t been laughing, I might have been dying from unbearable pain.

Today, fentanyl should only be taken under medical supervision. I also understand that not everyone has experienced the severe pain I did, nor have suffered the otherworldly pain others endure; my pain was eventually brought under control, subsided, and disappeared entirely. I consider myself extremely fortunate.

My body became so accustomed to fentanyl that I couldn’t simply stop using it. It took willpower and determination; perhaps a rare gift. We all have different physiological responses. I am not seeking praise for that.

A Broader Perspective

Beyond the need for medication for chronic pain, there are issues of susceptibility to addiction, both requiring a sensible, empathetic approach under medical guidance across a broad spectrum of related conditions.

Regarding fentanyl as a narcotic, I feel ambivalent. People don’t become addicts solely by enjoying sweets; there are complex circumstances that I believe cannot be addressed purely through criminal justice.

Labelling fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction would be narrow-minded and lacking understanding of human suffering, especially in pain management.

Learning from Recent Experience

My perspective is personal. I am cautious with medications, aware of their addiction potential. Recently, I used codeine, which converts to morphine in the body, to manage penile and urethral pain during the fourth week of radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

Prescribed to be taken up to four times daily, I rarely exceeded two tablets a day. After three days, I only took one tablet at night. I still felt pain and discomfort, but consciously avoided the lengthy process of weaning off codeine once my body adjusted.

As long as those who truly need such pain management are not disadvantaged by misguided policies, I hope this decision by the White House does not, in pursuit of an ideal, create suffering for many who simply seek relief.

Pain in my blogs

Blog - In hospital to kill the pain

Blog - Getting off the pain train

Blog - Generally responsive and dealing with pain

Blog - Stronger medicine and another course of chemo

Blog - Boldly tell your doctor everything

Blog - Off and back on the pain patch

Blog - Opinion: Where addiction and tragedy can confuse issues

Blog - Knowing pain is personal

World AIDS Day - 2023

So many friends I lost

I have lost many friends to HIV/AIDS, the first person I met who had HIV and was released from prison in France on compassionate grounds was trying to write his story with no idea of what time he had left. I had gone to help him out, on his computer; he passed on in late 1991.

Another was an opera buff, full of life, an exciting conversationalist with a predilection to a certain type. A very good friend that I had known for just over 3 years. When we gathered for his 37^th birthday, it was both a joyful party celebrating his survival and a sombre meeting that suggested we might not have another. A few months later, he had a two-page spread of a tribute-cum-obituary in the Guardian in 1994.

I guess from the late 1990s, people were not as scared of HIV, and medications were coming on-stream to deal with the worst vestiges of HIV or the progression into AIDS if the issues were attended to promptly.

Change and change together

In 2000, I emigrated to the Netherlands, and I also met many people who were living with HIV all around Europe. They seem to keep a low profile when they fell ill, and then they returned to the scene usually to tell of their ordeal and their escape from tragedy.

Also, especially with young men, some on receiving a diagnosis literally gave up and were ready to end their lives. I found myself in the role of someone who gave a new perspective to things that it was an opportunity to consider a new lease of life that makes a difference for themselves and others. Many of them are thriving and are thankfully still with us today.

When in September 2002, I received an HIV+ result, I vacillated between a fatalistic view of things and a progressively positive perspective. I had determined it would not be the cause of my demise much as I did not attend to the issues that might arise.

I sought a miraculous touch

I probably wanted something miraculous than consequential medical intervention. I attribute that sense to the kind of religious beliefs I had mostly been exposed to.

To that end, as my health began to deteriorate with the advent of AIDS in the time from mid-2008 onwards, I felt I was still doing fine until what presented as athlete’s foot was determined to be an aggressive skin cancer, kaposi’s sarcoma. Now, that was life-threatening, and in September 2009 I came upon the full diagnosis that was treatable if I responded to the treatment or in the words of my consultant, I probably had only 5 weeks to live.

My response to the treatment from medical observation was by its rapidity from arresting AIDS, clearing up the skin lesions and fungating tumours, and bringing my viral load to undetectable levels, miraculous. My body was saved, but everything else lost, that I had to start all over again.

What works, works well

In that time, I lost other good friends who had HIV to other attendant ailments that might or may not have been related to HIV.

I am fortunate and grateful, and the antiretroviral medication works for me, I have been on the same regimen for over 13 years with no need or inclination to change it for anything else. My biannual checkups keep a view on all the internal and organ functions allowing my medical team to address issues with alacrity.

Obviously, there is the issue of stigma usually borne of fear and ignorance, you still need to be careful who you reveal your status to, especially where you are not aware of their understanding of developments and messages that now attend to the living with HIV.

My thoughts on World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day for me is a day of recognition and remembrance; the many amazing lives lost in their prime, the stories that did not get told, and the suffering that happened in the private and public compounded by prejudice and discrimination. The triumph of humanity over adversity and the celebration of life beyond infirmity and tragedy.

Most of all, it is one of possibilities; HIV is not a death sentence, it is the beginning of the answer to the question about living a fulfilling, glorious, and impactful life. For that, I want to tell stories, even better stories, and the best stories that Brian and I can write and tell together.

World AIDS Day – To life and living well.

Thought Picnic: In the omerta of abuse

No perfect narrative exists

There are taboo topics that society, community, or situation makes too difficult to talk about for many reasons from not having a frame of reference in which to conceptualise and understand to the need to avoid engagement so that the horror of that reality does not inflict on our comfort.

In the matters of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, or bullying, some of which I have addressed in my almost 20 years of blogging, finding the form of words to discuss with the hope that it does not upset is one for which there is neither art, skill, nor perfection to convey silent suffering and the associated issues.

Why they suffer in silence

I would guess that is the reason that obvious and apparent victims do not share their experiences and mostly never report anything because of shame or embarrassment, worse still the default audience sits in judgement with the view that there is much more that could have been done to prevent things happening to oneself.

Yet, reporting any abuse is not as easy as making a customer complaint or reporting a theft, the violation of the person is visceral, it starts with the body, as the mind considers what has happened, and the spirit is grieved in the realisation of that truth. Maybe, the bruised body can be healed, and the conflicted mind can with time find peace, to reach into the spirit to enliven it is a whole different matter. A person must find their way just as they have to work with the dreams and imaginations that play in their heads.

Wrestling back some agency

That these taboos need to see the light of day through expression, sharing, and talking about it so that perpetrators realise that they do not hold any power over the people they violate or are emboldened to act with impunity is necessary. However, navigating the present to gain the support, sympathy and empathy needed to grow would never be an easy task.

The child abused who on mentioning it is shut down because the adults who should protect them cannot deal with it, the person who has suffered domestic abuse takes the blame for instigation rather than the abuser getting excoriated, sexual assault is seen as opportunistic and victimless that partners of victims are more hurt than the one molested, being on the receiving end of bullying considered an act and state of weakness when one is expected to fight back and put a stop to it.

Help, don’t worsen it

The long hard mile that others would never walk in the shoes of the wearer is deemed the easiest feat of endeavour. People in pain from living through it are doubly hurt by others taking on the same pain for what they never lived. It is a strange world, you begin to believe that the cruellest thing to allow to happen to yourself is to suffer pain, to be a victim, to be caught in circumstances you should have controlled but you failed to.

Whilst silence cannot be the answer, we have to find it somewhere in our human nature to consider, to appreciate, to understand, to commiserate, to empathise, to feel, and to know, that others will have experiences beyond our comprehension, if we cannot help them, we should not make it worse. Sadly, this all is part of the story of our humanity, much as we would love better stories. I do not have the answers, we should be careful of taking offence in the hurt of another.

Once again, “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” [Romans 14:22b] The journey of self-healing is lonely, scary, unsure, and not guaranteed. You take each day as vulnerable and human with the hope that there is better ahead.

Berlin: That We May Never Forget

A sign of times past

Just at the entrance of Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn Station is a panel board of place names. Twelve in a list that spells the recording of one of man’s greatest inhumanities to man.

A list of Nazi Concentration Camps

These were the Nazi Concentration Camp names of which if you have read a bit of World War II history, Auschwitz is the most prominent.

The Nazis used these camps for various activities as hostage, labour, prisoner-of-war, re-education, transit and extermination camps. It was in some of these extermination camps that they systemically killed off people, most especially the Jews in what is known as the Holocaust.

Feeling the presence of pain

Now, I have never visited any of these places, but in 2007, I visited Pawiak Prison in Warsaw and that experience still lives with me, for I am of the opinion that where innocent blood is shed, there is always a memorial of feeling and uneasiness that beclouds that place.

Blog - PAWIAK!

However, what struck me more about the Nazi setup was their attention to detail that created a bureaucracy of such efficiency that the particularity of things they documented just took your breath away.

Badges of badgering

One good example of this was the identification in the Nazi Concentration Camps where tattooed numbers, badges and armbands immediately identified the type of prisoner you were.

Nazi Concentration Camp Badges – Courtesy Wikipedia

So, you had political prisoners (red), professional criminals (green), emigrants (blue), Jehovah’s Witnesses (purple), Homosexuals and sexual offenders (pink), asocial elements (black), Roma gypsies (brown) and so on. Pink triangle along with the rainbow flag now signify LGBTI causes and diversity.

The Original Rainbow Flag – Courtesy Wikipedia

The two superimposed triangles in the sign of the Star of David depicted Jews, typically yellow but could have other colours signifying Jew and another offender category.

That we may never forget.

The most important lesson to learn from this and in that understand why World War II was fought and won for our liberty, freedom and acceptance of difference and diversity is in the many memorials that say as shown on that sign, “Orte Des Schreckens, Die Wir Niemals Vergessen Dürfen.” This roughly translates to, “The Places of Horror, That We May Never Forget.”

They who have no history and keep no memorials are destined to repeat history, those reminded of the horrific past are quicker to embrace the greater good of humanity and human existence.

More correctly, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana or “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” Edmund Burke.

We speak of history because there is a burden of truth we must carry for the present in order to secure a future of peace and happiness.

Decade Blogs - Abubakar A. Musa - Challenging the humanity in us

Decade Blogs

One of the reasons why I gave everyone offering to contribute to my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging free rein to write on whatever issue, topic or story that they like, was it opened a window into the diversity of our human existence.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Indeed, I have loved reading the blogs that have showered underserved praise on me, but just because I provide a platform does not mean I should take the best seat. My job here is to introduce, to curate, to edit, to schedule and to publish – I do this with a great duty of responsibility that people would trust me with their opinions, a sense of honour that people would respond to my request to write for my blog and with deep gratitude and thanks for the many who have appreciated me enough write.

I wish I could say more about Abubakar A. Musa, I cannot, apart from some exchanges we have had on Twitter, but after reading this blog, I found this is someone I would love to meet, in gain and in pain, for a person whose eyes are open to the recognise the core of our humanity is the person that can be true in all things.

We have had five Popes in my lifetime, they have over their reigns done maybe significant things, but Pope Francis seems to have reached deeper into the soul of our humanity with his touching and simple compassion, he has become the Good Samaritan example of our times.

Blog - Pope Francis taking us back to the core of our humanity

Abubakar A. Musa brings to this page, many pictures of suffering, pain and grief, the vulnerabilities and frailties of our humanity and asks that we begin to understand what people go through, how it affects them and how it affects us. Most of all he asks us to visit the sick, offering comfort and succour to them. We must become considerately responsive with humaneness and our humanity.

I completely relate to this, I have been in a situation where a visit, a word, a touch, a smile, a hand was all I needed to ease the pain, if only for a while.

Blog - Thought Picnic: What the gravely ill need

Abubakar A. Musa, once had a blog, but he sometimes contributes to Omojuwa.com and AfricanLiberty.org and his Twitter handle is @blinkingam

Challenging the humanity in us

I was just a little under ten years old, my father held my hand and walked me through the various wards of the then, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Kaduna (now in Shika, Zaria). Ward after ward, bed after bed, lots of people lying down with relatives and love ones rendering their support and immortal comforts.

As we walked through, I saw certain family members in shatters and disarray. While some were trying to comfort others, many were in high degree tears. Poor me, my brain couldn't comprehend any bit of the actions of those people nor the ones that surrounded them. I decided not to remain silent by asking my father why those people were crying. I remember vividly, yes, I won't forget, how my dad shook his head and said to me “at this stage, you will never understand what they are going through.”

While walking through life, those words of his keep shaping my thoughts and actions. Each time I was to be taken, either as a patient or escort, to the hospital, the feeling of seeing people crying and or in pain always echoed loudly in my head. True, I've seen many others since, but being my first contact with such incidents and at my developmental stage of life, that first event was my greatest TURNING POINT.

Today, I clearly understand such feelings. Today, I know what it means to be lying on a sick bed battling for survival. Today, I totally comprehend what it means to lose a loved one, a close associate, a companion, and even an enemy. Ironically, it's today, after I can relate with such feelings and reflect on its effects upon the humanity, that such incidents are becoming more than regular to my eyes.

Every time I walk through our hospitals, public or private, the sympathy of human souls battling for existence always met my first step. From the less disturbing to the most severe ones, people screaming, others seeking comfort and some saying goodbye. At that stage, the words of my dad always reverberate in my head. But, unlike then, now I clearly understand what the sick ones are going through, and what the relatives of the recently died are also equally going through. Each time I find myself across certain wards of the hospital, the feelings aren't just frightening, but the core of my humanity is always shaken.

Going through the oncology ward, the sight of many Cancer patients will always make you weep, if only you're the strong type. Going through the special care units and special care baby units, infants that are yet to know the meaning of their existence and parents alike battling to exist against deathly ailments. Walking through the female, labour, and the obstetric/gynaecology wards are equally deeply painful and emotionally scary episodes. Mothers and primers trying to escape the sword of maternal mortality.

While some deliveries are as successful as Michael Jackson in the music industry, others end up with difficult complications leading to many kissing the world goodbye. At the anti-retroviral screening (ARS) centres, the story is less comforting. Depression upon depression, and the fear of stigmatization are well embedded on the faces of the usually many patients. Many couldn't just understand the meaning of life any longer while the few that could, end up facing the challenge of societal rejection.

Of all these, one needs a deep human perspective to understand what they and their relatives are going through. Unlike then, I do not need to ask anyone anymore, because now, I understand what they are going through. I understand their feelings and that of their love ones. I understand that life could be so cruel when you least expect it. I, now, understanding that no human soul is more important than any other. The words of my dad had made me to understand that no flesh is immune to illness much as no soul is immune to dying. But above all, my constant visitation of the sick ones has helped in shaping my positive reactionary human tendency.

Should anyone visit the above mentioned hospital wards and not feel touched to the core of their human compassion, such person should re-examine their human moral consciousness. Looking at my general looks, the healthy lifestyle I'd lived and still living, I feel much lucky as a person. In between, I'd fallen sick and might still do again, that I know. But I've every reason to be grateful for the journey so far.

If you find yourself healthy today, if you find yourself comfortable at this moment, irrespective of your past turmoil and challenges, cherish it, live it, enjoy it, and be grateful to your creator as well. But do remember, you aren't much wiser than those lying on the sick beds or those passing away every second.

It could easily be you on that sick bed, it could be you going through that pain, and it could have been you that passed away. Everyone would, at a point, go back to where we all came from. Reeling the feelings of good health today shouldn't becloud our trait of sympathy towards those being tested by nature.

We should be thankful to God for such opportunity and ensure regular hospital visitation to rewire our virtues of humanity. In the theory of relationships, there's always a point of first contact. Your visitation to hospitals today and fervent prayers could change some other person’s live. Challenge the other side of you and explore the virtue of humanity within your composite make up. This life is nothing but a test of our collective thoughts.

Thought Picnic: In life, we will always differ

Of secrets deep inside

Following on the issue of acceptance and understanding of my parents and relations concerning things that affect and define me, I realise there is much we probably will never get to talk about.

Many decisions and allowances have become the story I have never fully told, yet, I have friends urging and compelling me to reveal more facets of my makeup.

Finding a new direction

Beyond that, there are elements of activism that I am not too conversant with, but I have experience of because of whom I am and what I have.

To some, these issues are lifestyle choices, but to those who live within that framework, if we could really make those choices we would have made completely different ones.

There is no reason to go against the grain to prove a point deliberately, we are not obstinate and stubborn people geared to offend, upset and embarrass anyone, we are just human.

We suffer in silence

However, elements of our humanity are still difficult to understand and accept; some of it comes with fear, with shame, with stigma, with discrimination and sometimes violence unwarranted.

Besides this, some of us bear in ourselves a death sentence, organisms seeking to sap away our life force and yet we refuse to give in – we are survivors, telling a tale mostly to ourselves that we will see another day, another year and more beyond that.

Both different and the same

We just want to get on with our lives and not have to face the unremitting scrutiny of people who want to define our lives by what they consider the norms to which we cannot adhere.

When we do sit down to talk about some difficult and hard truths, we might be different but no less than anyone else engaged in the pursuit of love, happiness, peace, joy and a life worthy of remembrance and positive impact in our communities.

The life of Mother Theresa in a London exhibition

A mother of excellent service

As I walked up Charing Cross Road just after Foyles but before Tottenham Court Road Station on the left where it is a construction site with diversions and a modicum of inconvenience, I was handed a leaflet for the official exhibition of the life of Mother Theresa.

If I remember correctly, she died in the week following the death of Princess Diana as if she chose the occasion to slip away with pomp or ceremony as the world was distracted by the celebrity and sad end of the fairy tale of this other famous woman.

The exhibition in a church just off Soho Square had a chapel with a statue of Mother Theresa in prayerful pose with a notice for all to pick a prayer card from a bowl beside the statue. I in fact thought the statue was real at first.

Features to see

There is was a 55-minute documentary about the life of Mother Theresa, a corridor with pictures of events in her life and a hall with about 100 posters illustrating and describing her life from birth, through her ministry to her death.

There was so much to read of this remarkable woman, her faith, her service, her Christian piety and her deep commitment to the suffering of so many, her example puts to shame too many Christian leaders reaping their rewards already that they might naught when heaven comes.

Profoundly, I was moved by her response to aborting by getting involved, she offered to care from the unwanted children pleading that they be brought to term. It is a lot different from those who pay lip-service to being pro-life but are not there to really bear the burden that comes with the good-intentioned activism but absence of requisite charity to back those agitations.

There were panels of effects of Mother Theresa to view much of which I believe when she is made a catholic saint will be put in reliquaries for veneration and supplication.

Elsewhere in the church a replica of the room where Mother Theresa lived was constructed for viewing too.

Getting there

The volunteers were helpful, friendly, knowledgeable and nice, they exuded temperance and soothing affection, you could not demand too much of them.

The exhibition runs until the 15^th of September from Tuesdays to Sundays between the times of 11:00AM and 7:00PM at St Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, London W1D 4NR. The entrance to the exhibition is at the corner of Charing Cross Road and Goslett Yard.

Those requiring wheelchair access should call 07719 927 419, it is also the number of other enquiries and you can also email MotherTheresaExhibition@gmail.com – visit if you do have the time, donate to the church and write in the register of visitors.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe's epitaph by a little girl

Be gone and done

The slow death of Mugabe's regime as it grasps at battered reeds of a hope that had long been extinguished by the suffering of his people leaves us exhausted.

The life of his government ebbs away having been dealt the blow of a cardiac arrest in losing his majority in the Zimbabwean parliament, to an opposition that has been tested – not by slavery, not by liberation struggle, not by apartheid but by fellow black countrymen drunk to excess with power – and it is now ready to take the tattered mantle, maybe to a place of new beginnings - Godspeed.

Give us the president

The population of Zimbabwe does not number infinity, the count must end one day and the result will be known.

Woe betide they who give respite to the beast that ate the people for breakfast, took away everything that made the people a proud and honourable people and spat them out at dusk as all that once had worth became cheaper than the sand in the desert.

The defibrillator shall roast the heart to cinder because every good deed that might have been worthy of thanks a generation ago has been wiped out many times over by the longsuffering resolve of a people who would not endure slavery anymore under the iron hand of any man no matter the colour.

Tell the men to make the coffin of the wood of townships destroyed and by the time the last gasp leaves the beast, secure him to eternal repose with 9-inch nails and not a few.

Zimbabwe’s plight is Africa’s shame

As we begin to rejoice at the end of the suffering of Zimbabwe and it must be very soon - the shame of Africa is laid bare, not one has been a brother's helper in ending this travesty.

The people of Zimbabwe took their destiny in their own hands and called a stop to their bondage.

They will owe no man their freedom because they voted the man out with their blood, their suffering and their vote, for which they deserve all commendation, praise and support.

We amongst ourselves most evil

Let it be known that it was the black man who took away the hopes and aspirations of the fellow black man.

It was the black man, his cohorts and minions that bloodied their fellow countrymen.

And it was fellow black leaders that gave succour to the reprehensible, the atrocious, the unacceptable and the downright outrageous.

Zimbabwe's friends in their quest for real self-determination were not in Africa, they were further away but kept faith for their deliverance.

Let the past begin

As a new dawn breaks we congregate at the death-bed of the beast, any time soon, should come the last gasp, the padre with the stake awaits the moment to make dead certain dead sure.

Line the grave with lead and seal it with concrete and let it be sunk in the rough of the deepest seas.

No remembrance should be made of the beast for the past ends when the stake was driven in.

After all said and done, the little girl of hardly 10 said. “He was a very bad man”.

She could have won the Pulitzer prize with that one line.