My father's legacy
I later got more understanding when I was introduced to Newton's laws of motion in my elementary Physics class. The third law states that, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction".
My father said whatever you do is coming back directly or indirectly to you. He said the reaction of an action may come not directly to the doer but to the children or grandchildren. If the action giving rise to such a reaction is positive, the recipient of the reaction is proud of his grandparents or ancestors and if otherwise is the case, the recipient of such feels sad about it.
It was on this premise that my father made it his culture to always give gifts from his resources. He was a farmer who produced yam majorly. Every year, he cultivated his yam in two different locations - one in a wetland and the other on dry soil. The yam grown in the wetland matured very early - in fact, at a time when most people haven't tasted new yam.
Once the first harvest was made, it would be shared to family and friends in the neighborhood. I met this tradition and it was very fascinating seeing people telling my father that,
Hope your farm is doing well? We can't wait to celebrate the harvest of the new yam with you".
The celebration, however, is about the tubers of yam they would be expecting once the time reached.
Something happened one day when I followed my mother to the market on a saturday to do some shoppings. It was at that early time of harvesting season. We went to buy ingredients to cook Egusi (melon soup) with Ogufe (chevon) to eat the first pounded yam of the year. My father had shared the yam gift to not less than 15 people a day before. Each person got five tubers. When we got to the market, I realized that five tubers of yam of the same sizes as ours was going for 2000 Naira. This was a reasonable amount of money then. When I got home, I told my father about the value of what he was giving out as a gift and a part of me propelled me to tell him to put a stoppage to it. A selfish child right? I think I was.
My father sat me down and explained to me that I shouldn't always value what I give out only but to also do the same to what I get from others. Few weeks before then, a herdsman was passing by our farm and he called me to collect a bottle of honey for my father. My father brought such experience to explain to me that if the herdsman wanted to get monetary reward for the honey, he wouldn't have gifted it to us.
Such encounters changed my understanding of giving for life.
According to Lucky Dube, the late reggae artiste, about what he read and understood in the Bible,
Blessed is the hand that giveth than the one that taketh".
This became my watchword till this present moment. I always look for an opportunity to give than the opportunity to collect gifts.
My father continued with his tradition till he died in 2013. He was greatly missed and it took time before people around our neighborhood could come to terms with the reality of his death.
A gift that impacted me
Let's now talk about a gift that I have accepted that is so memorable. When I was in grade 10 in highschool, I was given a Further Mathematics textbook by an older student who had graduated from the school. I had a phobia for Mathematics before then.
Surprisingly, the book did a magic trick about how my understanding of mathematics concepts changed for the better after my encounter with the book for a few weeks. Mathematics later became my favourite subject and I did very well in it when the result of my highschool final examination was released. During my undergraduate degree, I did better in Mathematics courses than any other. I teach Mathematics presently. I sincerely give credit to the Further Mathematics textbook gifted to me.
Living my father's legacy
From the foregoing and knowing the benefits of the act of giving, I joined forces with some friends to form an organization, Etohueyi committee of Friends. We came together to contribute money and extend hands of kindness to some children in our village finding it difficult to fund their education.
I realized how difficult it was for my father to sponsor my education and I know that there are hundreds if not thousands of children in worse situations today. We are making it an annual programme so that we can keep giving back to the society yearly. On December 31st, the first edition of such intervention will be carried out. We are at the stage of getting in contact with deserving beneficiaries. I'll share the journey with you, my amiable hive family soon after 31st.
Let us all cultivate the habit of giving. The world will be a better place with the act of giving.