Bongolistically,
Mallam O.
Some memories do not fade with time. They become clearer, as though age wipes away the distractions and leaves only what truly mattered.
One such memory takes me back to Warima, the village where I was born and spent my childhood. It is not a memory of an extraordinary event. Nothing dramatic happened that day. Yet it has remained with me all my life.
My father held my hand firmly that day as we walked to the farm.
He earned his living as a driver, driving one of his own fuel tankers. During the week he was often away, transporting fuel from one part of the country to another. But when the weekend came, he belonged to Warima. The farm was where he wanted to be, surrounded by his family.
He was not a farmer in the sense of spending the whole day clearing bush or digging ridges. By then he could afford to employ men from the village to do much of the labour. He would inspect the crops, discuss what needed to be done, lend a hand when necessary, and make sure everything was progressing well. We children wandered about, sometimes helping, often playing, until it was time to eat.
Those meals remain among the finest I have ever tasted. Rice cooked over firewood, fresh vegetables picked only moments before, fish or meat prepared in large pots, all shared beneath the shade of trees. Whether it was the fresh air, the company or simply the appetite that came from the walk, I cannot say. I have eaten in many places since then, but food on that farm possessed something no restaurant has ever managed to reproduce.
On that particular morning, however, something was different. My father was unusually thoughtful.
He was not telling stories as he often did. He was not asking me questions about school. He walked steadily, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the path before us. I remember looking up at him more than once, wondering what had captured his attention.
His hand held mine, but for a moment his grip relaxed and my hand almost slipped away. He tightened it again without looking down.
At the time I thought little of it. Today, I think about that moment often. What occupied his mind?
Was he thinking about the family and the responsibilities that rested on his shoulders? Was he considering how to provide a better life for his children? Was he wondering whether the sacrifices he was making would amount to anything? Or was he thinking about me?
Perhaps every father, at one time or another, looks at his son and tries to imagine the man he will become. I like to believe that, as we walked together that day, he was wondering what lay ahead for the little boy whose hand he was holding.
Would I remain in Warima? Would I receive an education? Would I become a teacher, a driver like him, a farmer, or something none of us could yet imagine? Would I become a man of good character?
There is another question that returns whenever I revisit that walk. Did he know? Did he have any sense that his own time would be cut short?
He died not long afterwards.
I was still young. Too young to ask him the questions that only a grown son thinks to ask his father. Too young to understand that one day I would long for just another walk along that familiar path.
Did he wonder who would guide me after he was gone? Did he worry about whether I would go to college? Did he hope that others would help shape the life he had begun to shape himself? Or did he simply leave those concerns in God’s hands? I shall never know.
What I do know is that, although his years were few, his influence was lasting.
Long after his passing, I found myself returning to that walk whenever life presented a difficult choice. I remembered the dignity with which he carried himself, the value he placed on honest work, and the importance of family and relatives. Brotherhood or sisterhood doesn’t always mean being born by the same parents. Without realising it, I had been learning from him all along.
Yet another question has followed me throughout my life. Have I ever become the man he expected me to be?
When I look back at the little boy whose hand he held, I wonder whether I have fulfilled the hopes he carried that day. I have travelled farther than either of us could have imagined. I have studied, taught, led institutions, served my country and worked with people from many parts of the world. But achievements are not always the measure by which a father judges his son.
Would he have been proud of the man I became? Would he have smiled to see his son keeping faith with the values he tried to instil? Would he have been content to know that, despite life’s successes and disappointments, I never forgot Warima, the family, or the lessons learned at his side?
I ask myself these questions because there is no one left to answer them.
Perhaps every son who loses his father too early carries this longing, to hear just once more, “Well done, my son.”
Looking back now, I think my father’s greatest gift was not the farm, nor anything he owned. It was the future he believed was possible for his son. He did not live to witness where that future would lead. He never saw the lecture halls, the universities, the journeys across continents or the opportunities to serve my country and beyond. Yet, in some way, I feel that those achievements began on that narrow footpath between Warima and the family farm.
A father held the hand of his young son. A son watched his father gaze into the distance, wondering what he could see. Many years later, the son is still trying to answer that question.
Perhaps the answer is this. He was not looking at the horizon at all. He was looking beyond it, into a future he hoped his son would one day reach.
And if, from where he now rests, he can still see that little boy from Warima, I hope he knows that every step I have taken over time has, in one way or another, been an attempt to complete the journey we began together on that walk to the farm.
Mallam O.
