Aduke, My Living Legend

At burials, people always have great things to say to the departed. They usually are full of the best eulogies and kindest words. It is kind of understandable, we hold the dead in a certain reverence. The thought that plays around in my head though is I hope you were nice to this person and told them these things while they were alive.

Someone who has played probably the most pivotal role in my life is my mother. Simply and unassuming, but the surface would trip you up if you don’t look deeper. This woman is a force of nature and the story of some of our interactions should be documented.

I will take you back to the very first one that maybe changed my life forever. I was maybe 10 or 11 years old at the time and I noticed every one else had someone they called mummy or daddy. So with the innocence of a child, I asked her, Mum, where is my own daddy. She told me sit down, I have been waiting for the day you will ask this question. She told me, it would have been easier for me to tell you your father is dead and that will be the end of the conversation, but he isn’t. When I was pregnant with you, he refused the pregnancy and said it wasn’t his and I should get a D&C. The truth is I tried to get one but things just kept getting complicated. I eventually decided to have you against what seemed better judgement but I was happy I took that decision. I was already crying at this point but I had not heard anything yet. She said it is okay to cry, you aren’t the first person it will happen to and you won’t be the last and I remember she mentioned the interim head of state at the time, Ernest Shonekan suffered the same ordeal of rejection. She told me that day, that your father is alive, I don’t know where he is, but he is out there somewhere, but here’s a fact. If you grow up and become successful, he will come look for you and beg you. If you become a failure, they will point you out to him as his child and he will look the other way and not want to associate with you. I was crying storms that day and she let me cry and when I was done, she told me, the choice of meeting your father in future lies in your hands.

From that moment, an insatiable hunger for success was born. When I wrote exams in secondary school, I wasn’t just trying to pass an exam, I had an appointment with a man in future who I was determined to ensure he realized he made the biggest mistake of his life by rejecting me. I was a brilliant kid growing up but the hunger for learning doubled that day.

Another lesson this woman taught me was never to fight with my friends over money or women. She also told me in very strict terms not to waste energy going after women, that I should channel that energy into enterprise and that women naturally flock around successful men even when they are successful themselves.

I was barely 15 when this woman was giving me these life hacks. She taught my brother and I the act of calling bluffs and seeing through BS. She taught me to respect people below my social standing more than I did those above my social standing. She taught us kindness and generosity.

She never spared expenses when it came to education, extra school learnings, you poured your heart totally into your children.

My mum had gone for a random screening one day and boom they discovered she had cancer and it had advanced seriously and they had to schedule her for surgery. I remember when she was being wheeled into the theatre, lying there looking lifeless, she called me and told me, don’t worry, I will come out alive, I have a pact with God, this is not how it will end. The woman had faith so strong. She said God won’t take me until I see you boys to a point where you can be good on your own. He knows I am your father and mother.

I sat outside that theater that day and I lost all sense of time, she was wheeled out and several checks after, she was certified cancer free. It became her bragging rights of God’s faithfulness in her life.

My mum was born a Baptist and is one till this day, but she never jokes with Pastor Adeboye’s programs and has never missed the first Friday program for as far back as I can remember except for when we lost her second child.

My mother’s second child was her favorite child, parents try to hide these things but the kids know. It was a very low point in our lives but my mum today doesn’t look like someone who lost a child a year ago. She keeps saying God allowed it and the circumstances of his death could have been much worse. This wasn’t her initial reaction to his death, she told me her son wasn’t dead when she was told and that he was coming back to her. Different pastors came to see her cause my mum is very active in the things of God, nobody could shake her faith and she was the one preaching faith to them. This woman’s faith was so strong that till we put my brother in the earth, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he came back to life. I have seen her near tears only twice in the last one year over her son’s passing saying she would rather choose to praise God than question Him . I have never seen faith like this before. I have cried my eyes out both in public and private over my brother’s passing.

I can’t summarize over 40 years of interacting with my mum in a fourteen hundred word write up but I am writing this and sending to her to let her know how much I value her and treasure her. My mother constantly prays and says God will make you a compassionate child, that prayer annoys me…lol because I am compassionate but that could be also be because I am one of those kids that wear a hoodie over their emotions. Another is my mum and I are cut from the same fabric, so you know how it is, strongly opinionated, zero tolerance for nonsense, being strongly influential and being a natural problem solver, so we clash every now and then and it looks like I am distant.

When I was young, my dream was to be very rich, this hasn’t changed but what constitutes rich for me is becoming an evolving spectrum as I grow older but if there is one thing I ask God for now to do for me, is to make sure I am the one who puts my mother in the earth and not the other way round. I pray that will happen many years from now.

I love you Bolanle Aduke Omo Ori Oke, Omo Onile Petesi(……..this is where I wish I had listened more to my grand mum when she’s hailing her child) and I am grateful for all you have done for me and still continue to do.

I pray you will live long in good health to see many more of your grandchildren and great grand children. But let me give you a heads up, your grand daughter wants to marry a Korean but I trust you to give that child your own special Yoruba name should that ever happen.

To my fearless, strong independent, battle ready, Godly and faith filled mother, you are my living legend and I love you so dearly.

Happy birthday.