Doing Better

They were her first two children or 
shall we say her first two living children
She gave birth to the first in 1950
She birthed the second in 1957
In between them, she had three children 
but they were all stillbirths
For the first child, she went to the local 
herbalist to check his future
She was told he would be poor and 
mostly unsuccessful in life
The second child however was revealed 
to be the rich one
The blessed one
Her husband was a believer, he loved all 
his children
She didn’t tell him what she discovered 
when she went to consult the runes of 
fortune
He would be very upset with her for doing 
such a thing
She really wanted to love the two children 
equally but she realized she couldn’t
The one that was revealed as poor was 
blunt, uncontrollable, and unyielding
The boy just couldn’t stand her
The second son was more like her
He was gentle and very dear to her heart
He was exceptionally brilliant too, a 
mathematics prodigy
The runes were right
The second son was a millionaire by the 
age of 29
He had studied electrical engineering 
and gotten a job with NEPA
By the time he was 30, he was married 
And Expecting children while his older 
brother was still struggling to get a 
degree.
The older one had traveled to Lagos at 13
His father, her husband, decided the 
favouritism she was showing the younger 
one was too much and could affect the 
older one negatively
He sent his son to live with his younger 
brother in Lagos
He felt that would give the young boy 
some balance
Of course, it didn’t
The younger brother’s wife turned the boy 
to a housemaid and made him attend 
evening school while he hawked palm oil 
for her in the morning
He got a job as a clerk at 
The railway at 18 and worked his way out 
of that house
By the time he did evening school and started 
writing jamb, his younger brother had traveled 
abroad and built two houses
Just the way the runes predicted
She hated to see it but her husband kept 
working hard to support the unfortunate son
He would give anything to support this son 
to achieve the next thing in life which for 
him were so effortful and in her opinion was 
like flogging a dead horse
At 40 this son got a first degree and was 
advised to proceed to M.Sc
He did
To pay his M.Sc fees, his father sold three 
of his big goats and a ram
His mother almost had an apoplectic shock
Somehow he did it
Slow and steady but he got a PhD at 47
His father was proud of him
His mother didn’t know what the big deal 
was (She was a non-literate) and saw little 
value in education
He got married at 48
His younger one already had two teenagers 
by this time
He had taken it slowly and it had paid off
He started working as a lecturer with a 
federal university
He started traveling abroad, living the 
good life
His mother still didn’t see anything 
good in him
She would say to whoever cared to hear 
it that “Her one and true son was the 
prodigy and the other was just someone 
who came to slave in this world
The younger son lost his job
He was arrested by a govt agency 
because he got involved in some illegal 
deals
He was thrown in jail for two years
His mother cried over and over again
When the second son was eventually 
released from prison he had lost 
everything
The job, the fame, the money, the houses
The older brother continued to wax stronger 
in life, career and marriage
In that two years while his 
brother was imprisoned the older one had 
built his first house and settled down to 
life in a glorious way
But he didn’t forget the things his mother 
said and did to him
Her words cut him to the quick all the time
A few years later, their father died
He recalled the days of suffering and 
How his father held on to him to in his 
passing moment
He decided he would do something great 
to immortalise his father
He raised some money and decided to build 
a public library
His mother and siblings came around for 
the launch
The event started
He told his story 
Thanked God for all that he had seen 
and said “His father was the best
His mother became uncomfortable with 
the flowery talk
She said “You brought your father to life 
by your words and I could as well be dead”
He tried to explain to her that it was not 
intended to be that way 
He just wanted to celebrate his father
His mother was livid
She refused to greet him or accept his gifts
When the ground-breaking for the 
project was over, his younger brother 
sent him a message asking why he 
treated their mother so disparagingly
His younger brother said “That is 
The greatest woman that we will ever 
have as our mother
Be grateful”
He laughed
He understood what his younger brother 
was saying
He saw one side of their mother while 
he was shown the other
The runes were wrong, 
he rejected stone became the chief corner 
stone
This woman backed the wrong candidate 
to succeed and even though he did, it 
didn’t last
It is the blessing of the older one that 
the entire family is depending on
Rather than apologize, the woman is 
claiming the son is an ingrate for not 
treating her like the best mother 
In the world
The younger brother is also angry that 
his older brother is not treating their 
mother like the best mother in the world
He sent his older brother a message a 
few days ago via WhatsApp
The brother got offended and wrote 
the younger brother a letter reminding 
him of how their mother treated him 
like a slave while she showered all her 
love on him.
He said he had been giving her monthly 
allowance and ensuring she is comfortable 
but he wouldn’t pretend she was what 
she was not.
The younger brother called the brother 
in Jeans and T-shirt. 
He didn’t want his mother to be sad 
over the issue and he knew his brother 
was upset
A meeting was called and the Holy Spirit 
stepped into the matter
The mother told the story and apologized 
for believing the runes
The older son forgave his mother and the 
three of them met the 
Holy Spirit.
(Their father had died in 2002, at that time 
the older brother was still poor
He said they didn’t even give him a 
canopy to host his friends when his 
father died because he couldn’t contribute 
enough money!)
The Holy Spirit took over and all the 
hatchets were buried!

PS: Parents must learn to do better
We all must.