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MAMA ALADIRE



By Ola Vincent Omotade

Dedicated to my Grand-mother...
Mrs Aina iroko aladire who lost valiantly  to the earthly struggles of  7th April  2002
   


Alone was I by the roadside leading to Ilu Ogbon crying bitterly in my hands, as if this  tears is not gonna stop.

 I saw this dark woman laughing out at me, drew me nearer and kissed me. am not here to give you jingling rhymes of musical languages. I can still remember the good old days fresh in my memories.

my secondary school was then located in a desert called ilu-Ogbon just about 50km far away home, just as a boy a little one, I never had opportunity to know what mother's care was, I never even knew how the mother's kiss sedates one's spirit, in fact almost did I know how the breast milk tasted when I left home in sadness and sorrow , with one penny, with tears looking for help if there is any. on my way to ilu ogbon, I met a woman IYALADIRE she came as a friend standing through good and evil, she was always ready to share the joy of prosperity and the pangs of adversity, she increases our happiness through prosperity and diminishes our sorrow in adversity, she brought light to the darkness of our lives when we felt crushed and helpless.

We never felt the impact of our biological parents after listening to her moonlight stories at night pinching ourselves 'kids'
with other children we ate in a red brick pot, flaunting our undeveloped breast in a red brick hut.. hah  mama aladire

  She opened us up to new vistas of beauty in our lives, in her arms we got weaned and warmed for life but she was always giving us her words

"I feel am not living in vain"
she left the profoundest influence on our intellectual and moral character
shocking to know, she suffered  with her only surviving son who dies eight weeks to the day I met her, she lost her five sons a year ago to the great Ijaye war of 1975
she wakes us up in the morning with a smile, holding our tiny heads up high, she's never letting anyone hold us down because we all are her little angels, she knew how to make us laugh , she told us stories of how she grewup her self, she painted us with words of happiness, she taught us what our mother's forgot to teach us she was a queen in our little word.

just that day we came back from school, stunned and stormed with the fresh thunder, though we had earlier saw a star fell a night before and the rainbow that money was not usual, moving close to the entrance of our hut , we began to hear sorrowful noises,  we floundered in the sea of perplexit, there was a deep silence that silently silenced the parrot of the sky, and the environment was as cool as swirl water brooks. then we saw the lock of an approaching storm even when it seems the very house seems asleep we knew immediately that her mighty heart was hovering round the heavens.

oh death!
death came stealthily at night and snatched our lover away.
the rainbow gloomily shed across the earth and the internment of our beloved was a mystery

mama aladire is gone away
histories won't forget how influential you were to our world
she died in her sleep few years ago
they said just before she left for heaven she gave everyone a smile and said I will be seeing you very soon..
mama we know longer see you , only in our dreams on fridays, we will never forget your lifestyles and practices, mama you have your soul encrypted in our memories

Comments

Unknown said…
Wao... Can't hold the tears back
Rest in peace Mama
14 May 2018 at 03:12
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