My Selfless, Prayerful, Energetic, Caring, Industrious, Accommodating, Lovely MOTHER is a woman of impeccable (faultless, exemplary) and ineffable (too great for description in words) character and my mother was and is the light of her world. What would I have done without her? This question I ask you now I have no answer for because I have not come across anyone that matches the qualities my mother has. If man requires a choice to be born by a mother in this world and beyond, I will have no other choice than to plead that IYA IFE OL’OUNJE should give birth to me and take care of me once more for all times. When I was hungry, you gave me food, when I was sick you nursed me back to health with your prayers and care, when I was threatened by the world, you stood for me, you were my lawyer when I had no one else to turn to, when I had no shelter to sleep your chest was my pillow and your stomach my bed, when the tides wither low and the debts where high, you never gave up on us. You taught me how to walk, talk and you gave me life and the very essence of existence, I sometimes wonder if I could live without you but when it dawn on me that I could not, I quickly remembered how you encouraged me not to give up at anything I ever lay my hands on for the world is mine to lead, her words were “oko mi f’oriti, akuku da” i.e. my child, hang on its going to get better. Mum you strived and worked hard for us to get the best and taught us to be contended with little or whatever she gives us, she would say “Nkan ti iya eyan ba ni o ma nfun omo e” i.e. be contempt with whatever your parents gives you, my mother is a saint like no other, a wife like no other and a shoulder to rest on when in doubt or confused and I sometimes wonder if every one in the world was like you, oh! What a wonderful world it would have been.

I have searched by and large and came about no one that is willing and ready to give up her life for me but YOU and YOU ALONE, as I write this last sentence, a lot of scenario came rushing to my head, I am the last child of the family and I grew up in the hard times when my parents were struggling to keep up and give us the very best, my mum would save every kobo for us, she would rather put her loads on her head than give it to the “Alabaru’s” (load carries in market places), she would rather wear Ankara than wear Lace or expensive clothes, one of her usual words then was “Eyin omo mi l’aso mi” i.e. my children are my glory, oh! What a life, you surrendered so soon to death now that we can afford to buy for you the Sequins’ and Laces’ of this world. You believed we can make it even in the midst of frontiers and when nobody believed in our dreams, my mum could give anything for us if it will bring us good and honour, few mothers of this world will live only for the providence of their wards/children like you did. Before and after your death, I have studied a handful of mothers I came across and lots of quotes about famous mothers and to my dissatisfaction, my study came to naught for I was unable to match that which my mother was to me and what she stood for with all my findings, it became glaring that my MUM is rare, special and incomparable, irreplaceable and second to no one.

I remembered when I graduated from high school and it took years before I gained admission, she was with me all the way, she encouraged me and kept me focus, when admission process came up, she followed me to and fro Ado-Ekiti knocking on doors, there was this occasion that the secretary to the then Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences embarrassed us, MUM knelt down and started begging her, all for me to get admitted, she is a humble woman, she won’t dare call people by their names, rather she would daddy, mummy, uncle, aunty, brother or sister you.

IYA ADE you are my hero, my confidant (I don’t talk to no one except her, I was into her), infact MUM you are my SUPERWOMAN, how can I ever forget you, you contributed greatly to my well being and existence, MUM was it when I was seven years?, I will forget your deeds? I was down with typhoid fever and I had to write my promotional examination in primary school, MUM had to strap me to her back to and from the hospital and back to school. I will always love you SWEET MUMMY even in death, you went through a lot for yourself, family and friends and I have asked nature a lot of times why you had to go without reaping bountifully here on earth all what you had sowed, then I remembered that no man has a stake in the blueprint and array of the most high God, who is man to question the approach of divinity who’s knowledge and intelligence are unreachable and unequaled throughout all of existence. I am yet to come to terms with the loss of your death because still, it’s like a dream, the only assertion was when your remains was brought from the mortuary and I request to open the coffin to see for myself so that I can comfort my curiosity. My heart aches as I write this piece for I do not know how I’m going to make do with this terrible and monumental loss at the very launch of my existence. You were a mother, a sister and a pattern to all and sundry... and I know that the legacy you left behind will be forever eventful, for it will be a part of me till I die to meet with you at the Lord’s feet, your death brought to my knowledge that we only live for one thing and that is to impact life, no matter how long a mortal lives, it would be not worth mentioning if lives were not touched in his/her life time. Mother, you were a leader and an epitome of womanhood, even the great women of this world can’t stand you and what you stood for, it is said that what we do here on earth echoes in eternity and I know that you are with the Lord Jesus Christ receiving kudos for a life well spent, there is nothing good made that was not made from God and I thank God every other day of my life for being a seed from a mother like you and letting me feed and receive nutrients from a placenta connected to the only life and friend I ever had the opportunity to know while in the womb and when I first witnessed this world.

It is only true that I will miss you for a very long time to come, I am crying for your loss even as I type this and I will still cry more, I miss your smile and there is and will be an emptiness no one in this whole wide world can ever fill but the Almighty himself who gave you to me and me to you. I sometimes wonder why we have to die to live but then I remember what the Bible has to say about times and seasons; there is a time to be born and a time to die, to sow and to reap, there is a beginning and there is an ending, you have sown what no man has sown and therefore you will reap what no man has ever reaped, I know you have ended mortality but I also know that you are now in eternity with our creator harvesting heavenly blessings. I could go on and on to try to describe who and what you stood for but time will not permit me to do that neither can the literature of these world quantify you.

Mother, I will live for the dreams you had if that is the only thing I have to offer, for your purpose of existence will be wasted if I don’t live up to your expectations and surpass it, funny as it may sound but surely will come to reality, MOTHER wants to see her children on the screens of our local TV, she wants her children’s signature appended on the naira note but I tell not only will this be fulfilled but it will internationally either now or in the generation to come IN JESUS NAME (Amen), what a local woman with a big and large dream. Men might let us down, families might desert us, people might look down on us and colleagues might try to pull us down but I know that the prayers of my mother when she was alive and now even in death will see us through by God’s unfailing grace. The purpose of our living in this world is to leave behind when we die an impact worthy of emulation and this; my MOTHER has done as you all will agree with me.

You are the world’s greatest mum and if there is a trophy in the world for the most committed mothers’, you my MOTHER will surely be the one to lift it.

From the bottom of my heart MOTHER I say a big thank you for laying up your life for us your children, you took the challenges that life, people and your health put on you and through it all you raised five wonderful independent individuals, we really appreciate you and we hope we do same for our own family and kids as you’ve done for us all, MOTHER you are an epitome, an embodiment, a quintessence of every good things. MUM we cry no more for we have won and death has lost its sting, this I know is the beginning of the sweetest chapter of a book you started, giving birth to us your children to lighten and brighten up the world.

Rest in peace MUM and do not relent in your prayers for our sustenance from the throne of grace.

We love you and will miss you for all times.

Yours Forever,

OJO, Ifeoluwa Adeyinka