[b][/b]Dave and I attended the same school. I bumped into him some months back at the mechanic shop where I went to fix my car. He said to me when we got talking, “My father retired meritoriously after serving the country for 35 years. Unfortunately, his retirement package was more like a stipend. Sooner was it paid than the demands that took it away surfaced. By the time he fixed our leaking roof, his bicycle, and attended to other family demands, the money sublimed into thin air. My father joined the civil service at the local government level at an early age. As a result, he retired early after putting in decades of stellar performances in his active days.”

He continued. “My father became worried over time. He was more bothered about how the next twenty years of his life was going to turn out than worrying over his underlying health conditions. I tried several times to remind him that worrying worsens our situation. He would sound as if he heeded to my advice but with every single day that passes you would notice that he was fading away. My father was a perfectionist. You can understand while the future bothered him a lot. While he was in active duty, he would get his office clothes ready in a manner that they would last for the weeks ahead. His diary was the most important gift he left behind. It captured detailed expressions of how he planned for the week ahead. However, too much worry got him sick that he was taken to the hospital for medical attention. We were told that his blood pressure took a spoke and put him in great danger. He ended up being discharged after spending three days in the hospital.”

The mechanic beckoned Dave to come and start his car. When he returned, he said, “About a few days after being discharged, I heard my mother screaming at the top of her voice. I rushed out and met my father lying lifeless on the floor. I could only notice the eyeballs moving. We got him to the hospital only to be told that he had suffered a stroke. We later took him home after we must have spent a couple of weeks in the hospital. After a couple of days that he was discharged from the hospital, he invited me to the corner of his bed and said to me, “My son, my situation is getting worse by the day. I had high hopes as a young man. I was one of the few in the village that had the privilege of attending Standard 6. No one was surprised when I got the job at the local government headquarters. I did all I could but it wasn't enough. I thought I would have built a house for the family by now. But lo and behold, I am still holding up in my late father's house. If I couldn't do it while in active service, I doubt if I can ever achieve it now. My father would have classified me as a total failure if he were to be alive’’.

Dave concluded before we both left the workshop. “My father died the next morning in his sleep. Till today those words he said to me about being a failure kept haunting me. I was saddened by the events that followed up after his death- not because they were bad but because they unfolded at the wrong time. We had this small plot of land very close to the pathway that led to our village. It was so small that my father's siblings rejected it. But being the last of three boys and a girl, it was forced on my father as part of his share of his father's inheritance. It happened that one of the mobile telecommunications companies came to my town to site a mast. They ended up choosing this plot of land that everyone neglected. In the end, the contract was signed and this put so much money in our hands. We would take some money from there to build a house for the family. This is the house that my father died for because he believed he was never going to see one in his lifetime. It was a big lesson for me. It was an experience that enriched me.”


REFLECTION
Some days are hard but it doesn't mean that the days ahead don’t have the potential to turn out better. The trials and tribulation of life could make us feel as if there is nothing more to live for. But keeping that glimmer of hope alive could be the key that helps one escape the rigours that come with hopelessness. No matter how hard things are now, we should always believe there is the hope of better days ahead. Dave’s father forgot that even though retirement and age seemed to have put a finite limit on him, the opportunities that his tomorrow had the tendency of presenting were always going to be infinite. We can never know what tomorrow could bring on the table. Hope, we must have a firm grip on. The day we let it go is that day we begin to die slowly. Dave's father let it go and lost his soul.

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