Mimi's Thoughts

Open your eyes

She was 30 seconds into her response when she realized he wasn’t listening. He could hear her alright but he didn’t really care much for her response.

It didn’t matter that he was the one who asked her; “Linda, how are you feeling today? I hope you are fine now!”.

Linda had been away from work sometime around 3pm on Monday and stayed off on Tuesday and Wednesday too.

She had dragged herself to work on that Monday morning but realized she couldn’t make it to the close of work.

The flu…that’s what she had.

So when she ran into the CFO at 5:15pm on Friday and he seemed to be concerned about her health, she felt the need to give him a detailed breakdown of the whys and hows.

…but he didn’t care. She could see it. He was probably thinking about something else…but she went ahead and finished her story.

“Okay, have a nice weekend” he said.

“Thank you Sir” she replied and then she got into her car and drove home.

It was somewhere between the office and home that she realized he just wanted to be sure she was back and able to work…that was all he wanted to know.

The work…that was all that mattered to him.

It was common knowledge.

Loved… Missed

I’ve been working from home this week. I had to stay back with SonTer…He had a need for an emergency surgery a few days ago and needed all the love and care he could get… especially from me.

I had just shut down my computer after an hour of working when my phone rang…

It was Mr. Adamu, his class teacher.

Mr. Adamu had asked me to text him our home address earlier and he was calling to say he was at the front gate.

I let him in and he was very excited to see Son… Son felt the same.

He had a hand made fan-like thing in his hand… He went ahead to open it up and he handed it over to Son.

The words inscribed on the inside brought tears to my eyes.

His classmates wanted him to know his absence was really felt.

Blessed… It’s how I feel right now.

Seeing my son get some love makes me feel so happy

Can You Imagine

Since their album titled Old Church Basement and LION, I’ve always had something to say about Elevation Worship albums.

This time it’s ‘Can You Imagine‘

It’s an Eight track album.

Being an e-member of the Elevation Church, I had heard and rocked all songs long before they debuted on Spotify, apple music, YouTube and the lot.

Just like my son, I found that most people loved ‘Praise‘ a lot more than the other seven.

Praise is very upbeat… Just like ‘No One’ from the LION album.

I don’t have a favourite…yet. I love them all.

On this album, along with the Elevation Worship team, we have our usual collaborators; Chandler Moore and Brandon Lake.

Morning People

A couple of days ago Martha told me she had car issues and needed a ride to take the boys to school.

Their school was enroute my son’s school.

We hit the road, talking and laughing with the kids.

As soon as we dropped them off and headed for SonTer’s school, we began talking about the boys.

We focused on Darren.

SonTer observed that he was quite moody…just like the other morning.

I had observed that too. Darren was a real chatter box and very friendly in the afternoon and evening.

He definitely was not a morning person.

Just like me.

…but the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve tried to adapt to living in the mornings.

I wonder how people do it effortlessly… I guess they were just born that way…unlike some of us.

Somethings that help me brighten my morning:

Coffee
Music

Are you a morning person?

Pigeon 🐦

It was a chatty day in the OBF (One Big Family) WhatsApp group. OBF is a group of cousins connected by one man…my paternal grandfather. We have a bond we can not explain.

Ngodoo sent an Instagram post

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxx3acau-7W/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Angela was the first to respond:

I’ve been a night owl!
During this period, I always said I wasn’t a morning person.

Then I had children!
And for so many years I actually thought I had become an early bird!
Running the shop at Gudu even made it worse. . .

Then I switched it all off.
I wanted a break. I just wanted to be me..
That’s when I discovered, me wants to sleep in on a good number of days and still wants to go to bird early sometimes..
Maybe too many times 😁

So maybe I’m really just that in between Pidgeon who wants it all and is exhausted from all the long nights and the early mornings but gets to do what I’ve got to do, when I have to.

And to her response Su’eddie said:

Very few people can give a correct answer after this your marking scheme, Big Sis.
Very well said. Shows that life is in seasons and we never really know who we are

With their permission I have shared this… I couldn’t keep it to myself.

Self love vs selfish

How selfish is self love?

I think it’s been over a year since my sister Angela and I discussed this.

We agreed that some people had taken self love too far and then we worried about how much it deviated from what God intended.

If we love ourselves and ignore the rest of the world then that might be too selfish.

…but sometimes you just have to look out for yourself… You have to care for yourself to be able to care for others.

After all, the greatest commandment is centered around you.

If you don’t love yourself, how can you love your neighbor?

So the question is, where’s the line? And how do you know when you’ve crossed it?

That line that tells you that you are being a little or a lot more selfish that you should.

That line that shows you that you just ignored a neighbor that may have needed you.

I’m literally asking here.

My empathic aching heart

I have a heartache I have been dealing with for a while.

I wanted to call Helen my Wonder woman to share with her and find out if she had any good words to share and comfort me.

I contemplated for weeks.

I kept telling myself that she probably had problems of her own right now and could do without my own problems.

One evening after work, my heart felt too heavy and so I decided to give her a call.

I picked up my phone and there was a message from Helen waiting;

“Hi sis, Terkuma will be operated on tomorrow, please join me to pray for a successful operation”.

Terkuma, her six year old son as it is, was scheduled for an umblical hernioplasty.

I put my heartache aside and put Terkuma in my prayers.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since the successful surgery. He is doing well and my heart aches a little less too. 😁

I see you

There’s a vacant piece of land

Maybe not so vacant

There’s been an attempt to develop.

Looks like a 3 bedroom structure…abandoned…

Reptiles crawl and creep out… onto my space…

I’ve seen a few snakes

But mostly lizards.

They hover around my back door…the lizards.

Any carelessness…and they sneak into my kitchen

I see them. I try not to be careless.

Every evening, before I open my back door, I do a ritual banging on the door… sometimes some singing too…

…to scare them off.

It works.

They scamper and whisper “the lady of the house is back”.

Sometimes I peek at the window and see them…as then run.

They pause and look…they see that I see them…and they run along.

I think it’s the same with some humans in my life…they think I don’t see them…then they do…then they run.

Shun…un-shun…re-shun.

When my son was about 4 years old, I heard him tell someone “I won’t be your friend again”.

I knew where it came from.

It came from the adults around him. I hear people say it all the time…sadly, often to children.

They believe it’s productive to train and/or teach a child to do something right by threatening to take away your love if they fail to do the expected thing.

I disagree.

So I made it a duty to be sure my boy didn’t join that school of thought.

It took some time, but I won him over.

I made him see, with my words and with my actions, that you don’t shut people out of your life just because they have done something you don’t like. Especially not loved ones.

I remembered this while I watched an episode of The Office where Dwight decides to shun Andy for 3 years. He explained that “shunning is an Amish technique – it’s like slapping someone with silence”.

The good part was how Dwight kept un-shunning Andy to discuss “important” matters throughout the episode…but he never forgot to hit the re-shun button though.

While that might be a funny episode from a TV show, there are real life Dwights and Andys out there…and I think it’s really sad.

In my mom’s eyes

Diplomatic

That one word

When she speaks about me

It’s what she often says…

It’s how she describes me

Sometimes I wonder if she’s got other words to describe me

Or if she has one worded descriptions for my siblings

But for me, it’s always the same word

Diplomatic