INSPIRATIONAL SHOT- Elias: It Took Him Two Deaths To Worry Less

I couldn't make it to Okene when Elias' father was buried. It was more like a celebration of life from what I was told. It was during my visit to his place in the city after the burial that he told me this story. He started this way, “Every day that we live, we go through experiences that present us with the opportunity to learn and become better people. This is never in short supply. And it is because, moment after moment, we are exposed to practical life situations that leave a lot of lessons to be learnt. The downside is that people don't act as if they learnt anything from their experiences or those of others. My father was 90 years old when he died. He lived very much as a healthy man. At 90, he didn't need glasses to read the bible nor catheter to pass urine. He was a very strong man who had a lot of energy to expend on his routine activities. Over forty years ago when my dad was still in his late forties, my late mother was worried over his well being. She became paranoid at a point. She was worried that my father, who was her husband, was going to be poisoned or killed with charm by his friends or extend relations. She became a bit obsessive about the whole situation that it began to sow discord between the two. Her feelings were genuine and appeared credible at that point. Some closer friends and relations echoed similar concerns. The anxiety grew by the day as my father became wealthier. At a point, the whole family caught the fever and we all began to feel it was our collective duty to protect dad.”

He poured some wine into the glass cup provided to me. It was from a gallon of palm wine that I went along with to condole with him. He said, “The wine tastes good. It is the type my father would die for. I really miss him. Let me get back to my story. You see, you wouldn't blame my mother; all these happened in an era where food poisoning and assassinations were the order of the day. Everyone was scared and in my mother's case, it was a case of a woman trying to protect the man that she had spent the last twenty years of her life with. It came to the point that my parents would go through battles before my father was allowed to travel to the village. She wanted him to sever the relationship with certain friends who my mother felt were not in the category of trusted allies. My mother had a philosophy. She would always say to me, “when you wake up in the morning and see a cock running towards you, you better run for your dear life. It is possible that the cock had grown some teeth overnight.” My mother trusted very few people. I didn't meet my maternal grandparents so I could not say what would have informed those philosophies. The fear of losing my father became my mother’s worst nightmare. Anytime my father travelled to the village for meetings and functions, she hardly slept. And the house would be turned into a prayer camp until his return.”

Elias was on his fifth glass at this point. I had just one and that was okay for me. He continued, "My mother lived a miserable life worrying over my father. She nearly tried playing God in my father's life. Unfortunately, she ended up being denied all the enjoyment life would have offered to her while she was trying to protect another. There were visits from one prayer house to another and her life was filled with fasting and doing whatever it was worth to protect her man. In fact, she suffered and relegated her own life as she worried every single day over an issue that was beyond her control."

Elias told me that he was expecting some of his colleagues from his workplace. Probably, for this reason, he concluded his story around 2 pm that Sunday afternoon. "Now, here is the part that got me enriched. It was the part that taught me that worrying does not provide solutions to our problems. Instead, it takes away today’s joy and steals from us all the peaceful moments that we would have had. When my father was 55 years, my mother went to sleep but did not wake up the next day; she died peacefully but full of worries in her sleep. The peace that she could not have in her lifetime surrounded her at death. Ironically, my father, who she sacrificed a worthwhile life for, lived an extra thirty-five years. The danger that my mother feared for did not disappear. They were there all the thirty-five years that my father lived after her death. There was no worrying and fasting wife. There were no more prayer sessions and spiritual communion from my mother. All those family and friends that she classified as threats to my dad were still there even in her absence. Strange enough, my father lived for an extra thirty-five years without my mother needing to protect him! It was one of those great experiences that enriched me. They changed my view of life since ever then. It is a ‘complex easy’ world that we live in. If you understand it, you will live through it as a happy person.”

REFLECTION
I have lived long enough to realise that worrying in life is an absolute waste of time. What happens to us is not within our power. But how we react or respond to them, is. Good things will happen to us. And bad things will too. The rational thing to do is to take life one step at a time and worry less about things not within our control.

When you worry about the seasons- how the rain comes or the sun shines -you might just be trying to shake the Iroko tree to make the tiny dewdrops fall. The parrot said that he stopped worrying about the length of his mouth the day people told him how much talk that came from the same mouth.

If there are many things in your life that could go wrong, there are equally as many others that could go right. Concentrate on the latter option. You would make better forward movement riding on a moving tortoise than riding on a rocking horse. Life is about the choices that we make. Choose your options wisely.

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