Life is a vain and everything in it a vanity: A tribute to Dad. By Nasser Adikibe Okoro.
2 min read
When the mirror is broken you no longer see your image. On a dreadful 15th day in November 2019 that you departed this world to join the saints, everything changed for me. Like a renowned writer wrote ‘Things fell apart and the centre did not hold’. You are a mirror of honesty, humility, hard work, discipline, and integrity; a mirror at which I looked at life. With your demise, a gap is left in my life which is irreparable. I will always relish your principles of ‘no food for lazy man’, ‘cut your coat according to your size’, ‘to work is to pray’ etc. I keyed into these principles which contributed to shaping who I am today. I remember vividly the stories you told me about your life in the Cameroons, how you navigated the terrains of life from apprenticeship to becoming a mechanic, then a driver, then a trader in Tiko market and finally a contractor. I remember the story about how you and your passengers ran for your dear life on a flat tyre when approached by a convoy of elephants as you were about to change your flat tyre along the Black Bush area between Manfe and the Nigerian/Cameroun border. Your experience as one of the first drivers to successfully ply the Aba – Tiko public transport route, epitomizes your strength, resilience and sense of judgment you exhibited as you traversed the axis of life.
You saw the ‘cold and the hot water of life’. No wonder you are a friend to any hardworking person irrespective of age, gender or socio-economic status. Your demise left me broken but your legacies would be the glue that will hold my broken pieces together. I take solace in the fact that you lived a good and upright life, and I believe that you are resting in the bosom of God Almighty. Every life is a debt to death; you have paid yours and you owe death no more.
Rest in Peace, Dad!
