by
Obododimma Oha
Heroes are known to do marvellous things. But heroes are not only those who hold the skies and prevent them from collapsing on us and killing everybody. Heroes are not only those who lift heavy stones and place them somewhere miraculously to create an "Olumo Rock." Heroes are not only people who do such things.Heroes are also people who sleep next to us and who do marvellous and admirable things in their own ways.
You have missed something great if you have not been close to your father, learning from him and asking him some stupid questions. And you have missed it if you think you can find heroes only in the films out there instead of seeing that hero in your father who, in his own way, has wrestled with the angel until dawn.
I hear that these days some spineless men could be made "Ezinna" (Wonderful or good father), a kind of new chieftaincy and warrant type administered by the church. What "wonderful" or "good" things have they done for humanity or for their communities? Anyway, I am writing about a real good father, one not made in church. I am writing about my hero who slept close to me and who now sleeps close to his chi.
That hero had a special software of a mind. Yes, he had a special type that his chi must have made when creation was an experiment just starting. He inspired me in a number of ways. I wish I had that kind of unique mind.
Father, my hero, had a mind and knew ways. He thought and he thought deeply and creatively. If he had seen the four walls of a school, perhaps he would have been a star. Yet he was amazing and knew things. He was very clever and was not a person to be taken for granted. When he was present, sit up and listen.
It looked like father's mind got energized by work. He liked work and enjoyed his work. He found pleasure in his work. He would be repairing our fences and would be humming a war song. Yes, indeed, he declared total war on whatever stood in his way. He worked and worked. He wanted all his children to have that orientation and to work as if all their lives depended on work. I think that if he stopped working, something in him would stop working, as they say.
It would not be too stupid to ask why such a person who liked work came first to the world as a parent to bring one in later. He must have come just to get certain things ready for us his children and for other people. For his life was service. His life was for others. This was a man who would be having a late breakfast because of community headaches and a person would call in and complain that one Mr. Okeke or Okafo was looking for trouble. And this father of all would get angry, drop his morsel of food and head out again to extinguish the fire! We did not like it one bit then, but now I understand and he remains my hero.
I hope my mother knows this: the greatest love she had for my father was when she chose to train his children to have him as their hero and to follow his footprints. It was not in the bedroom. It was not in food, as some women fallaciously say. It was not in small talk, falsehood, or saying what one does not mean. It was in training father's childrren to make him proud and happy.
One is lucky if one is able to learn fatherhood directly from a real father. From whom can one easily learn to be clear or cloudy? From whom can one learn the art of pretence and the art of forthrightness? Are parents, as our first professors, not in a good position to teach us falsehood and how to perform it? But one was lucky, very. One's parents hated falsehood and taught one to avoid it.
Father was realistic. He did not pretend. If he had no money, he would not pretend that he was rich, even for rhetorical and optimistic reasons. This does not mean that he had no cleverness and did not teach his children when to play clever and when not to. He simply saw earthly life as earthly life.
Father was particularly a "warrior," but a lone type. He fought alone and won. An "old soja," people would say in my country. Being a "soja" and "fighting" wars meant that he was committed and never gave up. Perhaps his favourites were difficult and trying tasks. These probably gave him the opportunity that he was looking for, to prove that he was equal to the task, even superior. A good "soja" who would rather die at his post than give up and this "soja" always won his battles.
My hero was "nwoke mgbe gboo," great man of the olden times, who survived several accidents that took many! One legged man who accomplished what others with complete legs could not.
Nwoke mbe gboo, great man of olden times, who never went to any school, but taught himself how to read and write! Nwoke mgbe gboo who knew ways.
Nwoke mgbe gboo, great man of olden times, who proved that a single tree could make a forest!
One very stupid question I failed to ask nwoke mgbe gboo and which I now ask: Why was he always washing his hands, even without some water or anything? He was always washing his hands and some of his children have copied this habit! Why? Maybe there nwoke mgbe gboo left a stamp: "Do this in memory of me!" Could that be so?
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