When I was a child, I never had the chance or the opportunity to enjoy the company of my grandparents. My father, David Osuntokun, died before his father, Sapoloso Ojo. Papa Ojo was too old when I was young. My paternal grandmother died young. But on my mother’s side, I had the privilege of knowing my grandparents. My grandmother, Omotara, was very old when I met her and she was really too old to be interesting company to me. She was inherited by my grandfather, Adeosun, when Bolarinwa his brother and Omotara’s husband died as was the custom our people in the olden days. Pa Adeosun was equally too old to be of any use as company to me in my youth. I also was not born in my home town of Okemesi but rather in Ilawe where my father had a depot as a business man, an Osomalo selling stuff in places like Ikere, Awo, Oye, and Egosi now Ilupeju.
This means I was physically removed from my grandparents and I never benefited from the rich stories they told my cousins who lived close by In Imesi. Even my father was an old man when I was born as the last child of eight children of my mother Elizabeth Ootoola. l write all these to show that I am a lucky man because I have seen my grandchildren growing up and they are benefiting from my being around just as I am benefiting from seeing and interacting with them. They may not know how much joy I derive from them. The most important aspect I benefit from them is their innocence, simplicity, naivety and trust in the fables I sometimes entertain them with. Of course they sometimes pose difficult questions to me which I mumble through without their satisfaction.
When I am with them, I try to bring them up in the way of the Lord as Christians. Even though they go to church once in a while but the coronavirus pandemic has in recent times made them home-bound most of the time which makes house worship very important. Secondly, some of my grandchildren live in the United States where violent racist attacks on predominant black churches are common and this have struck fear into my children who should have been taking their own children to church. This means the church has not been playing an important role in the lives of my grandchildren as it should have. The grandchildren are not very familiar with the Biblical stories of creation and the salvation credo of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Religion is not taught in American schools and in most schools in the western world. I remember teaching my American grandchildren the Lord’s Prayer beginning with “Our father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name …” My granddaughter who seemed to be more interested in our morning prayers once asked me “papa what about our mother who art in heaven?” Well, I was caught unaware and I started telling the poor child the story of Adam and Eve and the young child then said she understood then that Eve was our “mother in heaven”. I said no that she was not and I suddenly remembered how venerated our Lord’s mother, the Virgin Mary was and I tried unsatisfactorily to equate Mary with “our mother in heaven”. Hopefully this girl as she grows up will find the right answer to her enquiry . This made me feel that referring to God in the masculine sense may not be right because God is neither a man nor a woman. God is divine being above sexual classification of man or woman. I think the young girl had picked up the demand for equality between men and women in America and she logically felt “Our father in heaven” must be complemented by our “mother in heaven”. She was right logically!
Read Also: Virgins can enjoy the best s3x in marriage!
One day, as one of my grandsons rummaged through my travel bag, he found my wallet and opened it and lo and behold, she saw my wallet and brought it to me that he didn’t know I was a millionaire! This was because I had N50,000 in my wallet. He thought our N500 was the same as $500 dollars. Seeing the bundle of N50,000 in N500 notes made him think his grandfather was rich. He then asked if I was rich. I answered in the affirmative. Then to rub it in I said I had a solid gold wristwatch. I brought out a shining gold-plated wristwatch which somebody gave to me and I was looking to give it to someone but not a child. The young man told his father “in confidence” that his papa was a zillionaire! His father asked him how he found out a secret that I had kept away from my children, then the young man told his father about the golden wristwatch. My son later asked me to do his son a favour of wearing the wristwatch to bed that night. This was a request that I had no problem obliging my son. The young man slept very well that night and the following day handed over to me the “gold watch”.
I finally found an old student of mine to offload the golden wristwatch to and I hope nobody finds out the genuineness or otherwise of the “golden wristwatch”. This same little boy once asked me “papa were you born in the olden days?” I had no problem in answering in the affirmative. But this kept me feeling that I must look like Neanderthal to my grandson who could only imagine what it would have been in the olden days when his papa (grandfather) was born. These and more are some of the interesting life I am having when I see some of my grandchildren.
Sometimes I am challenged to swim along with them in some cold lakes as was the case in Lake Huron, one of the deepest of the Great Lakes straddling the United States and Canada. Or when I am asked to go for walks or to buy school supplies during which they will make me walk tens of kilometres while I am telling them how old I am. Then they will encourage me by saying that as far as they were concerned, I don’t look too old to them. Despite the compliments from my grandchildren, I suffered from the pain and aches of long walks or vigorous swimming the following day.
Anyone of my age would have problems manipulating the computers at the airports. In Canada, one hardly sees any immigration officers checking passports because one has to put one’s passport through electronic gizmos which when a print comes out, that’s what you wave at the immigration officers as you go into the country. God knows I have travelled to many countries in my life and in these days one has to flow with the new innovations coming out of the brilliant brains of young people making lives better for young and old people without knowing that those of us old people sometimes find the new things difficult to understand. This is why when I am arriving where I have children or former students, I always like to see them welcoming me and seeing me off at airports.
I remember going to Heathrow Airport recently and one of my granddaughters asked her mother why they were seeing me off and why I couldn’t just check myself in without apparently bothering them. She then asked her mother whether it was because I am old. The mother was beating about the bush so that I wouldn’t feel offended. I told the young girl plainly that she was correct and that I needed help because of old age. I get asked the same question by my grandchildren all the time why I needed assistance at airports. I suppose these young people do not understand that old people may look well; they are certainly not as fit as they used to be.
One day, I challenged five of my grandchildren to a short race. I knew of course I could not beat them. As soon as we began, they all one after the other flew past me giggling. I enjoy such occasions tremendously and I am sure my grandchildren will remember all these occasions when my time is up!