Dear Daughter

“Hey daddy, can you talk now?”

She knew better. When daddy got into the study for those three hours each day, it wasn’t time to ‘disturb’ him. On this day though, like Queen Esther, she hoped I would raise the golden sceptre and make an exception. You know how Daddys are with their daughters. I reluctantly shutdown the laptop I had been working on, turned to her and beckoned that she come in while giving her the look that said *can you see how I am eying you*

I had noticed the long face she wore earlier, as I walked into the living room. At conception she had rejected my long face. Having taken on her mother’s more rounded and subtle features, spotting a long face was easy. Thankfully too, we had grown to know each other well enough that she would readily open up. I was not deceived when she gave off the impulsive “i’m fine” answer to my inquiry as to why she looked unhappy. She would come around soon enough, and well, here she was.

As Charissa walked into the study, I couldn’t help but notice her 15year old figure; now able to remind me of her mother, my little girl was fast becoming a woman. The little girl in her was still alive though and she wanted to sit on my thighs, what are Daddys for after all. After sobbing uncontrollably for a few minutes, she was ready to speak and I had to transfer my big boned teenager to the couch, while subtly reminding her that it wasn’t wise to sit on any man’s thighs.

I know I shouldn’t have but i couldn’t help but roll my eyes back into my head as I asked her what all the initial forming was for when you was just going to crumple like a pack of cards eventually smh. You know all this happened inside my head while I maintained my genuine worried and concerned look. Am i not afraid hehe

“Do you remember when I told you last week that Fred was not talking to me?” She said

“Yes, yes I do. You said you didn’t know why”

“Well, now I know why he isn’t talking to me”

Brief pause please...who is this Fred guy, you asked? Or did you? Anyway...

Fred was her best friend; they had grown up together. Fred’s family lived next door until 3 years ago when Fred’s mother was posted out of the state. Fred now lived with his aunty on the other side of town. Fred and Charissa had done everything together from being born exactly a week apart to attending the same school and sharing the same friends. For us parents, it was great being able to share the task of school runs among the four of us. Everyone thought they were twins, except Charissa’s jealous twin sister lol. So you see, it wasn’t to be taken lightly when Fred and Charissa weren’t talking.

It had happened from time to time but they always made amends by the end of the day, neither could live without the other. To be honest, we were already dreaming about the wedding and grand-children and the bond to be forged between both families. Yes yes, judge me all you want, you would think the same.

I was stunned though, why would she be so torn apart having now found out the cause of the rift between them.

“What is it honey, why is he unhappy with you?”

And then the avalanche started. If all the words she said subsequently were to be written down, there might not be enough space for them all so, allow me summarise please.

Last week, Fred told her she was beautiful. She had responded with a thank you. That didn’t go down well with the young man. Good fellow as he is, he gave it another shot the next day by telling her she looked beautiful in her dress. My darling daughter had responded with “thank you, I know”.

I could still hear the cheeky, friendly tone in her voice despite the tears

Fred had been offended because she didn’t respond to his complement as he would have wanted. Now he felt she was a snub who didn’t think highly of him. As far as he was concerned, she would have turned various shades of pink and purple if one of the boys from the senior classes had said the same words to her. 

Guess who was to blame for all this mayhem?

Yup, you guessed right, Me!!! Well, she didn’t think so but I knew it.

You see, I am fond of telling Charissa and her twin sister how beautiful their mother is and how much they look like her. I would always refer to them as gorgeous princesses. If we were ever late for a church service, it would be because Daddy’s compliment about their outfit had brought on a photo-shoot with yours truly behind the lens.

These actions were not incidental. I had pre-planned to ensure my girls heard it all from me first, before any other man. I wanted them to feel loved, appreciated, cherished and to know their worth before anyone else got a chance to tell them. I wanted them to get used to being appreciated without having to give anything in return. One side-effect was that they had heard about how beautiful and intelligent and great they were so many times that, hearing it from Fred didn’t seem like such a big deal.

I couldn’t blame Fred for expecting a more endearing reaction. Aren’t many girls swept off their feet by a guy who looks at them in the eyes and tells them they are beautiful? While I believe such gestures are wonderful and are important in any relationship, I had always been concerned about the girl who suddenly looses all control of her emotions when a compliment was thrown in her direction.

True story, I was to attend an official event with a classmate once and I had the honour of picking her up from home. As she walked to the door to meet me, I smiled and said ‘you look beautiful’, she did look beautiful. Immediately, she turned orange, hugged me tighter than she ever had and whispered into me “no one has ever told me that. I love you”. I was uncomfortable the rest of the evening, secondarily because the L-word is a very strong one where I come from but primarily because she was all over me the rest of the evening. She grabbed my hands affectionately and wouldn’t stop introducing me as her boyfriend while smouldering me with kisses on the cheek and forehead. I’m not sure why I was unable to stop her right away; extreme politeness or the shock-like state I fell into. 

Things went from bad to worse when she ‘caught me’ talking to another classmate who she thought fancied me. Just like that i had broken her heart, as I realised the next day.

The next week was spent enduring awkward moments in class and answering questions from her friends about why I had broken her heart. My phone was full of hate messages from her. It was torture and why you wonder, because she had never heard those words from anyone, probably not even from herself.

Sadly a good lot of our young ladies turn out this way; ready to do anything for the one man who apparently appreciates them for who they are. After spending many years wondering why they were treated differently, less than their apparently ‘finer’ peers, one day Femi strolls by, notices her, smiles and says hi. Suddenly she is head over heels in love with him desperately clinging to him and ready to do anything to keep him by her side.

Just before you point a finger at the girl and ask her to have some self-worth. Oh father of the daughter, please remember, the world is our mirror and as such, she is going to see herself in the way and manner you have addressed and treated her.

I’m not yet a father he says, but you are a man and a brother to some and a ‘friend’ to many. Please treat her as you would want her boyfriend or husband to treat her. Let her get used to being treated nicely. Let her know she is important and appreciated. Open a door for her, every now and then hehe. Trust me, she will not look twice at that lousy fellow out there, the one you can’t understand why she is dating. She has seen better men.

To the dudes out there with the sweet tongue, I’m not hating mehn. I just want you to get a girl who believes you when you say those sweet words and doesn’t think you’re merely trying to get into her pants. If the last man who called her beautiful was her father or brother and he only meant it to appreciate her, she is more likely to believe you. Abi how you see am?

Becoming Jesus

We all look so much alike
We have the same hair do, same makeup, same dresses, same walk...
We talk the same way, use the same words, slangs, mannerisms....
Usually we are all trying to be the same, an image sculpted after some famous person, a greater being; someone we all think we should be like.
Is that what we were made for? Why was I made with dark skin and you came through with light skin why is hers is ligher even? Why is my nose flat and yours is pointy? Why are our hair of different colours? if not because we were made to be different?
Why then do we seek always to be like someone else and not ourselves? It is boring you know, having several copies of the same thing. Pointless even. Have you ever tried listening to the same line of a song over and over again, all day? Or maybe watch a movie a hundred times in succession? Even with your favourite movie, you get tired at some point. Why then do we try to be like someone else? why are we trying to create a boring, pointless world?
Then I sat back and thought again, maybe we aren't exactly wrong. Just maybe our aim to be alike isn't entirely wrong. Maybe its only a matter of wrong methods and a wrong approach. Maybe we set our gaze on the wrong star and haven't been able to refocus the telescope.
You see, in us is an innate desire to aspire to someone or something greater. The one who made us ensured there is a vacuum we would always seek to fill. A Void which would gnaw at us, asking for us to attain greater heights of completeness and satisfaction. As we'd always say, nature abhores a vacuum hence we find ourselves searching for this greater being, finding them, learning them and ultimately trying to be just like him/her. Its the highest form of worship, it is telling this person "you are so great 'even' I want to loose myself and become just like you" neiwaiz, gist for another day, that worship thing.
Many have found these greater beings to be singers or rap stars or footballers. Some found pastors, others found scientists and inventors, for some it a model and for others their parents; rather sad.
Having found them we begin to model our lives after them, howbeit often times subconsciously, we learn their walk and talk and how they dress, the things they love to do and spend time at. We learn their lives and gradually become them, some sort of clone or copy of them. For many of us, we aren't exact copies, slight differences still exist, the things that help us retain our identity. Some of us become so much like the greater other that we cease to exist.
At this point the struggle 'to be' often takes a wild turn cos then we find someone greater still and the process starts over with us now seeing ourselves through the lens of the new 'greater other' and so somehow always remaining in a shadow.
So after a while he began to sound like pastor Adeboye asking us all to shout halleluyah. The other fellow had a nice hair do and fancy coloured pants to help him share love to the world and so on and so forth.
Those who weren't so religious ended up with a slouch and a wardrope full of clothes to look like a rap star. The ners wore the look perfectly with loosely fitting shirts and ties that never matched but were worn all the same.
Maybe its not so bleak as I make it seem, maybe that's just how we were made.
 Didnt I say that already?
 Cos as I reflect, some verses come to mind
 We shall not all sleep but we shall be changed.....
 Be ye holy as your heavenly father is
 Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ

Indeed God hopes for us to be just like Him; in walk, in talk, in deed, in .....hence he sent his son to be an example unto us. He was so pleased to hear people being called Christians (little Christs) because they acted just as Jesus would have. He hopes that through the course of each day we would learn a little more of him, practice that much and so become a little more like him.
He also says that when he comes we shall be just like him, and at that time when we all look at him it would be as though we were looking into a mirror cos we would look just him. We would sound like him....let's just say we would be him😁
So you see, he really wants us to all be the same. Clones of him indeed. The only problem so far is that we have chosen the wrong coding strand to clone ourselves after.
I suck at conclusions so I'll end just here
#becoming Jesus

I have had a burden for about a week to write up something about the true meaning of life but the words didn't seem to make sense each time i tried to turn them into sentences for the blog. Then yesterday i came across this in the daily devotional by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Open Heavens, and it nicely summed up the intended post for the blog. so i am simply going to paste it here and trust that as usual you would enjoy the read.

What Really is Life?

"In order to enjoy the things that God has provided for us through Jesus Christ, we need to have an in-depth understanding of what these things are; one of which is everlasting life. Out of God’s love for us, we have the privilege of partaking in this everlasting life (John 3:16); but what is everlasting life? This is life that never ends. It is the type of life that even death cannot terminate. It means, living with God inside of you on this earth, and continuing with this life after going through the gates of death. Eternity does not start after death, it starts now. Jesus declared thus in John 17:3:

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

If you want to have eternal life, it starts with receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but it does not end there. It continues with having an intimate knowledge of God. It requires knowing His word. Every bit of God’s word that is revealed to you adds virtue to the life of God operating within you. Although some people are saved, they have little or no evidence of the presence of the divine life in them, because they do not know whom they have believed. How much do you know of Him who gave His life for you?

Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 1:12 declared that:

“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

The knowledge of the Holy Trinity is the source of eternal life. The more you know Jesus, the more impossible it is for you to be made ashamed. The knowledge of Jesus drives away spiritual and physical shame. If you know Jesus, you will not be ashamed or shy of being identified with Him, or to suffer for Him. Knowing Him helps you to trust Him. The level of trust or confidence you place in God is a function of what you know about Him. Are you born-again? Congratulations! The eternal life of God is present inside you; but this has to be jealously guarded and sustained by building a more intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, and by increasing in the knowledge of God."

sourced from http://rccgopenheavens.blogspot.com.ng/2015/11/eternal-life-starts-here-monday-16.html (18/11/2015)

Once we know what life really is then gaining it and living it as it should becomes a lot clearer. Not necessarily easier but definitely clearer. It begins here and now. Let us live and let it be eternal.

Peace.

Christianity as I see it, through my eyes

So I scored 15% on the last challenge despite all that hard work, somehow though (miraculously), I passed and was permitted to move on to the next challenge. Tough to explain; that is grace.
Should I fail on the next challenge, I am sure this grace thing would step in and cover for me again like before. That is faith.
On the next challenge I still work as hard as, or harder than, before rather than…. That is works.
Though I Know already that my attempts at doing good works, diligent as they may seem, would only, and always, produce results which are akin to filthy rags of righteousness (that is surrender) and despite the assurance of grace which I have through faith, I still do these works. I refuse to rest on my oars and just allow grace abound, even though it is said to abound even much more where such failure (iniquity) abounds. I double my efforts on the next challenge in an attempt not to continue in iniquity while looking up to the giver of grace to perfect all that concerns me. Now that is maturity.
That is Christianity, a life of surrender (dependence and total reliance) which ultimately brings you victory and fulfilment.

live and let live

Fear in  relationships is always real. Fear of the unknown I’d say. Fear of uncertainties, stuff you just aren’t sure of, some which may not even exist. Seems like the biggest killer of these pairings. "He hasn’t called all day, I wonder what he is up to." "She hasn’t answered the phone all afternoon, I wonder why. I bet she would have some airtight excuse to give when I ask later." I beg your pardon, not excuse; I mean ‘reason’ hehe.

Sorry ladies J I know you were about to reach for my jugular just there. na reason I talk o, no be excuse eh

These fears begin to corrode the trust you had built and soon you begin to breed suspicion then mistrust creeps in and soon hate is real and you begin to wonder, like black eyed peas, “Where is the love?” Where has the love gone? I think it is still there, just hidden away from sight by the fear, suspicion and mistrust.

My thoughts are simple, in addition to being plain and open, telling your partner all that goes on and trying hard to make them a part of your day even when they are far away, we need to do more.

1)      Let us be appreciative of each other. "Why hasn’t he called all day?" "Why hasn’t she answered the phone all afternoon?" "Why doesn’t she call too?" If these bug you that much then simply appreciate next time she calls or the next time she answers the phone on the first ring. Do not take it for granted; make her know you appreciate it. Make her realise that it put a wider smile than usual across your hairy face. Make him know that that text which woke you from sleep brightened your entire day, even if all he could come up with was “good morning beautiful” (some dudes sha o smh. ehen did you spot the double ‘that’ in the sentence? gosh!!! I have been dying to do that) and vice versa o!! and eh if she sends you “good morning beautiful”, you bera reply bruv. I don tell you my own o toh! Don’t start arguing about how males are not beautiful but handsome. Just know that it will get clearer by and by #lipssealed#

We need to express more and a good place to start is showing appreciation. Don’t keep the happy all to yourself, let dude know he was able to make you smile; might have been all he set out to do that day. It is nothing to be shy about eh; make your partner know how he/she makes you feel. Some babes be forming hard to impress so much that dude starts wondering if Hitler owns a branch of her family tree hence nothing makes them laugh. Oh let us not talk about my sisters in the choir who are feeling the boi eh I mean the brother (hehe) but think it is sinful to tell him (talk for another day sha). I hope dude finds someone else who enjoys his jokes and is willing to make him know they do. Ah yes o and Vice versa too hehe.

mehn!!! I need to keep vice versa-ing before these babes think I am betraying them fa.

Nuff said there, on to the next.

2)      Kill the idea of stereotypes. I saw this on bbm the other day. It said something like

girls be crying after their tenth heart break “guys are all the same”. "Who sent you to date all of them since they are all the same?"

Girls, ‘em guys are not all the same. I think often times we make our partner become ‘the same’. We come into the relationship with expectations and preformed ideas of how guys ‘usually’ behave or how a typical Nigerian girl ‘usually’ acts and when they show up to be that way we gladly toss out hands in the air and say “eh I knew it na, you are all the same.”

You Lie!!! 

They are not all the same. In a lot of cases they end up the way you expected they would because you expected they would (I hope my English teacher isn’t reading any of this #facepalm#). Some dudes already start treating the girl like their ex because they think she is ‘just another one of them’. Truth is, she would gradually begin to fit into that mould and eventually become another one of them. This is why I have a bone to pick with relationship mentors who teach us that guys are always this way or that and ladies are always the one way or the other. They say you need to know about this basic make –up in order to cope with certain parts of your relationship blah blah blah.

It is not altogether false but still I know women who bathe and get dressed faster than their husbands just as I know too many guys who chatter more than some women ever could.

Pardon my endless rant please but hear this (preacher mode hehe); what you expect is what you attract. Don't believe me? You need to read 'The Secret' by Rhoda Byrne. Little wonder God says to us to come to Him with expectations in our hearts. It is those expectations that will be met. If you expect your man to be another Nigerian guy then that is what he will be and please don’t lie to yourself about those expectations, we all have them. Oh and vice versa o.

I say, come to the table with bare hands and be ready to ‘learn’ this person like you never had any experience before. Come with a fresh notebook and register for this course, not as one you are repeating or are already experienced at, but one you are offering for the first time ever. Give your partner a chance to be himself/herself and see him/her through a new lens, not the lens of your previous experiences or tutelage. Truth is; some might turn out to be the same as the others but you would be able to say in the end that, you gave it your best shot; you tried it out without fear or prejudice. Don’t come with hidden agenda or like some investigator, hoping to find out the bad or possible good before jumping in or gingerly stepping away. Yes, I am asking that you put yourself in a position to actually get hurt. That is what love does after all. If you love me then you are wide open for me to walk all over you unless I love you too. Look at Jesus eh, love guided him along the way he went and look where that landed him- naked and pinned to a cross with nails, spear holes in his side, whip lashes across his back, a crown of thorns on his head, vinegar for a drink and some silly folk dividing his clothes before he could even finish dying fa. Why?? Because he loves you and I; doesn’t make sense but he did it for love’s sake anyway.

Ohkay, no preaching today please, all I am saying is, kill the stereotypes and be willing to try again as though you never did before and while you are at it, be appreciative of the big things and the little ones alike. Do not be afraid to express exactly how you feel whenever you feel it. Best of luck and plenty of grace too, I have a feeling you will need it. Thank me later J

P.S.  no cross things o, Jesus paid it all.

Being God;Being me;Made by God;Becoming God

Quite depressing being God, no? No one ever remembers you until their lives are in shambles. Your phone rings only when there is sad news or a need to be solved. Each call is about a complaint. No one calls or visits to find out how you are doing. They always ask of one thing or the other and it is never your well-being. If they ever wished for your well-being, it would be as a robber does; only so you have some more for them take from. I know what that feels like.

Now I doubt even God knows how I feel; after all he shouldn’t have any needs of His own. He is all sufficient isn’t He? Even if he had any troubles, they are not such that he would need to share them with anyone. Still even He craves our attention. He wants to share with us despite our limited capability, sadly we never give him a chance.

Hold on a sec!! This is not a rant about God, I am not about to plead His case on his behalf. I’ve got enough worries of my own for which no one seems ready to help. I really do not want to bother about His, at least not now. That is how we all are most of the time, in truth, we only really truly remember him when all else has failed us. He is that last resort. He knows this too hence he uses affliction, often times, to draw our attention to Him to remind us that he still exists. Even if all we remember to do is blame Him for the mishap, at least we still do remember Him at such times and our unarguable dependence on His existence is brought to the fore.

I am trying so hard to make this about me and not about God but that is terribly difficult now. I can’t help it. I am seated in church and the worship session is on, so I can’t help but talk about Him even in my own pain. I cannot complain about the pain because that is what has brought me running to Him today. I am not justified to complain...

No job, family is not the way I had envisioned it would be, ‘friends’ are very few and far between, courtship is wobbly, money is thin, the church has failed me and life just seems less interesting than I thought it would be and a lot more tasking than I had envisaged. I have run to the only thing that sounds real and sure., the only existence which still ‘appears’ to be standing firm. I am ashamed to acknowledge this but, that is the truth.

Maybe at other times I had been ‘drawn near’ by my love for Him and had nothing else to  distract me from Him but it is obvious to me at this time that I have come running now in search of Him to be a balm to soothe the pain and hurt. In need of a touch from the one whose hands were seemingly made especially for touching and mending the pained, bruised, wounded and broken. Sounds like a psychopathic being eh? But He does seem to prefer the broken jars. Those are the kind that willingly let Him remodel them anyways and that is what I have become. My pride won’t let me admit that I am broken, cracked seats better with me.

Indeed ‘life’ appears to be going down south in too many ways. Big guy up there, I hope you can hear my heart or read my scribbles, good thing you said your ears are not dull neither are your eyes dim.

Now they did it!!! They are singing “you are the pillar that holds my life”. This is my problem with most Christian groups, we are often quick and able to encourage ourselves. We take away the sting of the injury for a while without necessarily dealing with the root cause. You tell me that He is the pillar holding me up and keeping things together and I want to jump to my feet already and join in the worship session. Already forgotten all about why I had been pensive all afternoon. I suddenly feel secure and assured of the brightness and greatness to come but let us face it; I am still going to drive out of here in my old jalopee Chrysler, with the leaky roof and the orange reserve light which shines brighter than my headlamps beamed at me-the sad reminder that in the physical, nothing has changed. I need to fight off that temporary euphoria which wears off once the worship session is done and the endorphins run their course. Drat!! Now my tears are dry in this emotional burst of happy without the joy to it. I think I can manage a smile but my heart is still bleeding. Internal haemorrhaging is the more deadly kind, so I am told. How then can I say the church has helped me, symptom treating folk; the church too has failed me.

“Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you’re my God....”

They have turned it up a notch with the next song. The organist however isn’t enjoying this. You would think he hated the song or playing the organ all together, judging by the look on his face. If only he knew, knew my troubles, my thoughts and worries, if only he knew my heart at this moment. He wouldn’t have any difficulty playing that ‘thing’ and worshiping like he should. I don’t blame him anyway, I know him quite well and I can say that I was there a few months ago. Not a care in the world, nothing could put a wrinkle across my forehead and praising God seemed like something I did as a hobby, simply because I wanted to, not because I needed to and surely not because I felt I couldn’t help it. It came easy, without any effort and without a struggle of any sort. I always wore the so called garment of praise but now I wear a different one, one which I need to take off FIRST each time I am to worship God. These days though that garment of pain and sadness has become cast on me and taking it off has become increasingly difficult that I think I now need it broken off me, if I would ever get rid of it. Now you see why I am here. I don’t want to take this off like an overall I would put on again, I need it broken, and sadly that would mean breaking me as well or at least cracking me. Maybe not all of me but certainly something would have to give.

I guess I always needed that breaking and subsequent remodeling but I looked too raw and fragile for even a heartless ‘god’ to break me so He left me. Now though, with the wrinkles and scars, that decision should be much easier to make. It takes about six months to build a Rolls Royce, I hear. The prospective owner waits anxiously while the car is carefully handcrafted to his specifications. Like that owner, I am in waiting now, waiting for the newly sculpted jar which is me to be finished and put out in view for all to see and appreciate.

The acronym for my life up until now would have been ‘seamless’ but after this I think I would change that to ‘Made by God’.

#LearningPatience#LearningDependenceonGod#LearningAbout God#learningGod#

Family

I had been out there in the parking lot of the Cali International airport for at least three hours waiting on the arrival of the delayed airliner, someone had to pick mummy up and i got the honours so here I was. waiting was no fun until my mind took over and went into overdrive and showed me this:

She would have been about five years old, pretty as they come and looking dashing in her carton brown three quarter shorts and the pink sneakers to match her pink blouse. The smile on her face told me there wasn’t a care in the world that could bother her, not even the weight of the bag she was carrying. Who would leave such a damsel alone along the busy walk way of the Cali international airport? Apparently no one, which is why closely behind her was ‘aunty’. I wish she would take that heavy bag from little miss though.

Tall and elegant in the way she carried herself.  Her hair was made into tiny braids, there must have been like a thousand of those,  all packed into one bunch in the back held together with a green ribbon which matched perfectly with her green shiffon blouse. Below that was a belt around the waist of her perfectly penciled blue jean trousers which continued seamlessly with the reason she looked so tall, her five inch high wedge sneakers. Good thing five year old had ‘aunty’ watching over her from behind but why didn’t she reach out to take the bag which five year old was now dragging along the walk way. Aunties making nieces carry their travelling bags is just wrong I thought.

Mummy wasn’t taking chances either; she was two paces ahead of five year old. With glistening skin that only an excess of female hormones could produce she wore a free flowing gown to hide the reason but I could tell that tummy was big, big enough to stop he from seeing her toes without a mirror. She looked to be in her late twenties and was heavy with child, her second I thought. In that case, grandmother’s practical lessons on family planning, as evidenced by the age difference between mummy and aunty, had paid off.

Who were they here for? Who was so important that these two generations of ladies had come to meet today?

As mummy’s pace quickened a smile began to form on her face then her arms spread out into a hug, I followed her gaze and it landed on daddy. A handsome young man in his late twenties; sharply dressed with a suitcase in hand. His shoes, I couldn’t help but love his shoes.

The puzzle was finally complete, or was it? Where had five year old and aunty disappeared to? Ah there she was, she had dragged her bag across the car park and was about to hop into a car. Her mother was helping her put the bag into the boot. She wasn’t with pregnant mummy after all.

And aunty? She had stopped along the walk to have a chat with one of the men wearing a reflective jacket. Only then did I notice the name tag hanging off her neck. She was an airport staff. She wasn’t with five year old after all.

And so, three happy lives were made into one just by fiction of my imagination and the coincidence of seeing them take a few strides in tandem along a walk way. Maybe that is my idea of a near perfect family but now it is gone, broken apart to form real and hopefully happy lives.

Maybe someday I’ll have such a happy lot and be able to create such images in the hearts and minds of many who see us. Maybe some will wish and work towards having same but for now I will keep wishing and working towards mine.

If that is ever possible.