Let’s do this, bottom up. The best people in your life are not those you like or love. The best people in your life are not those you think like or love you. The best people in your life are never known without a tragedy.
The best people in your life are never pre-rewarded. The best people in your life are never discovered in time. The best people in your life are not those who applaud you. The best people in your life are not those who cheer you on or up.
The best people in your life are not eye-servants. The best people in your life are not entitled. The best people in your life are not praise-singers. The best people in your life are not profit-centric.
The best people in your life are not beautiful. The best people in your life are not ugly. The best people in your life are not educated. The best people in your are not illiterate.
The best people in your life are not rich. The best people in your life are not poor. The best people in your life are not in power. The best people in your life are not outside government.
The best people in your life are not the strong. The best people in your life are not the weak. The best people in your life are not tall. The best people in your life are not short.
The best people in your life are not noticed. The best people in your life are not noticeable. The best people in your life are not easily reckoned with. The best people in your life are not there.
The best people in your life are not angels. The best people in your life are not spirits. The best people in your life are not blood. The best people in your life are not strangers.
The best people in your life are not givers. The best people in your life are not hoarders. The best people in your life are not so-called worshippers. The best people in your life are not non-worshippers.
The best people in your life are not in heaven -but, of course. The best people in your life are not heaven-bound. The best people in your life are not heaven-conscious. The best people in your life are not saints.
The best people are not that wise. The best people are not that foolish. The best people are not that concerned. The best people are not that primed.
The best people in your life are not those you always give to. The best people in your life are not those who always gift to you. The best people in your life are not necessarily honourable. The best people in your life are not necessarily dishonourable.
The best people in your life are not the best in that sense. The best people in your life are not the worst in every sense. The best people in your life are not those who swear so. The best people in your life are not those you are so sure of.
The best people are never treated well. The best people are not seated at the table. The best people are hardly included. The best people are hardly invited, except.
The best people in your life are not those who always disappear. The best people in your life are not those who always reappear. The best people in your life are not those fairweather idiots. The best people in your life are not those ever-present good-for-nothing motherf-bla bla bla.
The best people are not always in the room. The best people are not always without. The best people are hardly credited. The best people are hardly recognised.
The best people in your life are those who follow you blindfolded into war. The best people in your life are those who are not interested in what’s in it for them. The best people in your life are those who are with you when they should not be. The best people in your life are those by your side when it is fashionable to run away.
The best people in your life are present when you really, really need them. The best people in your life are those who care about and for you when you really, really need that care. The best people in your life are your friends who pass the test when failing it would be considered really, really fair enough. The best people in your life are really, really too scarce.
The best people in your life are your supporters who don’t mind your public perception. The best people in your life are those who put your joy ahead of everything else; those who support you even when they disagree with what you say is best for you. The best people in your life are the last persons standing; unafraid of and unbothered by criticism and hate and allied swayables. The best people in your life are your forever five and six.
The best people in your life advise you, you shun the advice, get into trouble but they don’t forsake you. The best people in your life force you on a certain path, you reject it, and subsequently fail but they don’t give up on you. The best people in your life are those you treated horrendously but who are still there for you. The best people in your life are those who will never go around telling tales or gloating or mocking when something in your life goes kaput.
The best people in your life are a special breed who have special words to define them. The best people in your life are resilient. The best people in your life are sacrificial. The best people in your life are understanding.
The best people in your life are those who get angry, so angry with you but still stay put. The best people in your life are those who forgive you and forget what you did and never recall it. The best people in your life are the sanctimonious and worst lot who stay on; to help you to the very end. The best people in your life are those who quarrel with you all right but who never leave you.
Jesus on earth had His best people, even as He himself was (Matthew 28:20). He still does and is, today. I have my own best people, the same way I am to many. They/I always show up when everyone else goes into hiding because of social or such other correctness.
You, do you have your own best people? Hold them tight, if; find them, if not. Know that you are finished, completely finished, without. Finally, the best people who leave you are not the worst, it’s just that they are someone else’s best people; not yours.
God bless Nigeria!
Wigwe’s direct message to Nigerians
I never got to meet Herbert Wigwe, the suave CEO of Access Bank who perished with his wife, Chizoba, son, Chizzy, and a few others during a nocturnal helicopter flight in the United States. However, since his death and no thanks to the excellent media handling of his funeral, this writer has been feeling as if the banker extraordinaire was someone close. This is also a function of the beautiful television jingles of the bank that featured the then CEO so prominently.
I cannot but remain angry and bitter over those unnecessary deaths. For one, why perish over a mere game, any game for that matter, Super Bowl or even anything purportedly better or higher? For two, why would billionaires who have so much to live for ride a questionable air machine?
For three, and above all, the way the bank, family and friends packaged the ad hoc funeral activities. Especially, all those speech-making ceremonies. I think that thing, that tradition, should be banned.
We should celebrate people when they are alive. Pouring even genuine encomia on people when they die is silly and useless. It pains me to only learn after his death that Herbert Wigwe was this good.
Listening to all the lovely narrations by the high and mighty as well as the lowly, one could not but be annoyed and envious that those who experienced Herbert Wigwe waited until his death before sharing his super-goodness with the rest of us. In my head, I am thinking they are doing us what children do each other. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the English expression for it, and I am too bitter right now to ask anyone.
I mean, how is it that Herbert Wigwe, an extraordinarily good man lived in my generation, in my country, but I didn’t experience him? Accordingly, I hereby move a motion that henceforth those who encounter real good people should always broadcast their goodness while they are alive. That, on no account should stories of goodness be told only upon death!
Because it is useless. The good person doesn’t hear about the overload of sweetness they spread and from the mouths of their crowds of witnesses. In addition, others always think that even the best or the truest of these funeral orations are empty lies since no one around here ever speaks ill of the dead!
Day food changed my life forever
Some years ago, I went somewhere on the fringes of the deep south of this country, to see my friend’s wife. At the time, he had recently died leaving her with all of seven children.
It was beyond traumatic. I kept wondering what to say or do, during the visit.
She was in one of the living rooms with four of the children and guests who kept coming and going. She paused weeping to welcome me, excused all guests to another room and I had barely sat down when she resumed the weeping, this time in more deafening decibels.
I managed to concoct a few words of comfort to no avail and thereafter decided to allow her vent. She wept and wept and wept.
I sat lost in a reverie about the emptiness of life. The whole stuff is vapour.
Life evaporates like nothing. You are alive; then you die; then no trace; that is, if you don’t end up in a carton!
Suddenly, the weeping widow stops, looks around and calls out for the eldest daughter. Pronto, she appears from behind a door and her mother whispers directly into her ears just as the trained journalist in me jumps to report to duty.
What she tells her dries up the blood in me. Can you believe that the ‘chief mourner’ momentarily had stopped mourning just to warn her eldest daughter ‘’to double-ensure the kitchen door is locked so that guests don’t finish food because when we end crying we shall need to eat.’
Thinking about it now, she wasn’t wrong, but in that too is embedded the ephemerality of life; especially as the children and she instantly returned to weeping and lamenting.
I can’t stop wondering how something as beautiful, as priceless as life can yet be as cheap as food. Food, life, food, death, food: it is the currency and dominance of food, for me!