MY HERO

Inspiration for the title has to go to someone else but I still cant decipher who.

My hero for the longest time has been and always will be........

I wish I knew! I live in simple places and receive help from people simply. These people are very different from each other but significant to me none the less. It would be nice to come up with a name but that would shortchange so many and I do not aim to do that. So like I wrote about my friends a while back in a note on Facebook, and left it to them to figure out who was whom and refuse any level of commitment to confirm or deny, I aim to speak about my hero. I know many will guess and may be right while many will choose the path to walk on from here on out. I value each and every one and can only pray that my future has help in it to inspire some to greater things and elicit such words, actions as to make them become heroes to some.

We sat around and talked about a lot of stuff and the discussion got round to the manner in which children had been raised in Africa and specifically Nigeria and my wise guy said, 'If parents were judged by how they raised their kids, every single one of them will go to jail, with the exception of one man'. It got me thinking, that man is my first one, he was ahead of his time by far and if I start to gush about him, this will never get written. He never allowed anyone's opinion to matter more than the other, the true democrat who understood and practiced 'one person, one vote' irrespective of who the one person was. I have all kinds of emotions about him today, not all good but none reduced in intensity, he gave me my passion (a curse sometimes!) and a lot of other things that I exchanged for other stuff, as soon as I could. I nowadays look on him with kindness and something akin to regret for the distance that separates us and his inability to conquer the demons that wrestled him and stole his brilliance but he is in many ways, my hero......

He taught me to speak and do it well, he felt that I was beyond average in that department and should get all the help I need to do a better than average job of it. His attempts to make me write well were met with stiff resistance by my passionate and overactive mind (add lazy!). He pressured and taunted me and exposed my girlish heart to skills I should never have been trusted with. If today, he were to be categorized, he would probably be labelled a paedophile for taking such an interest in a child and forming a friendship with her but all was innocent. I wrote and wrote and wrote and he read and read and read. Never did I get a score that my over-inflated sense of self felt I merited but my demons never gave me time to see that. I thought I despised him till he handed over money for my WAEC exam becos I didnt have it and could not explain why. He felt I deserved a chance and should be given it and the small matter of money should not be the reason I would not at least try. Correspondence with him continued for years with long gaps, but my grateful heart does not forget my hero....

He put stars in my eyes, made me a princess every time he looked at me, listened to me, fed me and made me feel special. Even though he made the transition, I miss him and cant talk of my heroes and leave him out. It would not be fair. He stepped in and made me a father figure when by his estimation, my father walked into a dark place. I am grateful as he gave me an appreciation of art, music, travel and Mamaput rice. His time taught me the value of investing time in a child and he is my hero as he should be......

He seemed not to have his own home or family and was raised in ours. Been too long since I have thought of him and my remembrance of him calls to mind one (of many) acts of defiance as a child where I ran away from home & as with all  things, lost steam and anger on the way and diverted to his place and how skillfully he returned me to my home with little antagonism. He makes me feel a part of a whole, a world where males defend me rather than sell me for relevance or ego trips. He is an epitome of a good man in looks, character and connection. Beats me why he has been unlucky with love, testament that women can never be satisfied(what! our standards are just high ni!), but he does that for me, kind hearted hero mine......

He gave me #500 when I passed WAEC (if anybody ask me how many credit, we fit fight oh!) and another #500 when I passed JAMB ( I was praying so hard to fail but it was not to be,I badly wanted to learn Fashion Designing at the then recently opened Nikky Africana School of Fashion and live as a kept woman for the rest of my life....sigh! another story,maybe on another day). He gave me a caveat on provision which sounded like he wanted me to understand his humanity (and I did! I do!). He adopted me in a sense and when I wanted to practice what I learnt, he gave me a chance and he always is my entire troop of cheerleaders, always encouraging and always letting me know he is proud of me even when I had done nothing to be deserving. He filled so many needs, its not even funny, surely, a hero, mine.......

He should feature but cant. The pain wont let me let him. I worshiped him for far too long and discovered he had feet of clay. Why! oh! Why! Not a hero, just an ordinary man masquerading as one......

The one who claims the right to be, by being everything he ought to be. Never haven been weak, I strove for strength  and found it needless. I could be weak, he does not judge me. And I look around wondering if this is a trick. Clarity comes hard when you are always trying. He turned out to be my 'sit down and shut up and cry' hero but not that anyone would believe me. Still my hero none the less.....

My hero. Sounds corny but he is. The very best! He is unobtrusive, kindly taking every one of my issues into consideration. Dont tell him I love him enough to do anything for him cos he does not know, yet he loves me still. Whenever I wanted, needed, he stood with me. He is the epitome of kindness to me. He never gives me BS (for the uninitiated, bullshit!). Always takes me serious (ly) and always tries to do the best for me even when it puts him in a hard place. To him, we are equals and that's just a laugh, he is my hero, has been for long....

He is my hero, he has an obsession, same as me. If we dont indulge, we get cranky, like grizzly bears, we walk around with a sore head and make everyone around us miserable. When we indulge, we are free, able to weave words into scenes of authentic places in the mind of the rabidly imaginative. I found him as one would find antique treasure in a flea market, as one would discover the perfect seashell on the shore....I found him and so he's mine and he's already worth more than his weight in gold, teaching, guiding, healing and being my hero.......

My list is by no means exhaustive, when I say I have heroes, I truly mean it, I have tried to keep this masculine, maybe I should do the feminine one also. And mayhaps include my shorty(s). The ones who teach me childlikeness, I am too blessed, and I know it.......