A life quite interesting
There is one person I
do not sing enough praises of, a kind of strangeness and then familiarity that
seems to escape the purview of acknowledgement of humanity, service,
motherhood, tenacity and all-round extraordinary. A prophet that is somewhat
without honour in their own land.
There are stories we
have heard that could be hair-raising, a childhood that seem to offer
opportunity but was suffused with such guardian cruelty, yet against such no
malice is borne. I watched how distraught they became when that guardian passed
on and the final rites were missed by an hour.
In tribulation
triumphant
Dockets of tales in a
matrimony that seemed to all perfect whilst it was any but, the witnesses of tension
and worse that dotted occasions of détente never so sure to survive a season, the spouse pretending to fidelity rarely not there, but we do believe the
best of everyone.
In offspring
sometimes affected, tainted, or traumatised by that environment, there remained
such support hardly appreciated or understood, a dogged focus on protecting the
brood and shaping destinies in ways sometimes unintended, yet fundamentally
consequential. Here is a masterful ability quite unheralded.
Exceptionally gifted
to lift
A person who has
charted courses less travelled to become a symbol of relevance that set them
out as one to be chosen to pioneer a project of investing in young lives to
build a future. The project was tough and arduous, yet adept with skills to
manage and marshal, in the pit of the fire and the cold workface, hands were calloused,
and faces blackened with soot, but gems were mined that have appreciated in
value year on year.
And this is not a
culmination, but a journey that overnight a pilgrimage was embarked on fully
sponsored by the former uncut rough diamonds whose horizons were not that clear
but were given the prospect of a world beyond their locality. They have in this
day become persons of means and influence, extending the hand of their mentor
into places of power and significance.
Dams of gratitude
bursting walls
They return season
after season to that anvil of life where they were forged and moulded into
implements of change and the chief blacksmith invited time and again to inspect
the workmanship of exquisite and priceless provenance wrought in that forge.
The power of gratitude flows like brooks into streams, into rivers, into seas
and waters that lap lands all over the world.
It is in this that
our person is celebrated; Mrs A. J. Akintayo, daughter, lady, woman, teacher, wife,
mother, administrator, principal, businesswoman, prophetess, leader, fighter, voice,
pilgrim and this list is hardly exhaustive. I salute you, enjoy your trip of a
lifetime and there are more to come. You shine and we are exceedingly proud of
you.
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| With the Class of '85 of the then Ejigbo Community High School on the 27th of July 2021 You can laugh this well if you have made lives so good. My mother is in the middle. |
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| The presentation made by the Class of '85 to my mother as the pioneer principal of the then Ejigbo Community High School that was founded in 1977. |
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