Memorial Day and memories

Welcome to Omar_inspiringstories, where we delve into life's profound moments. This post reflects on Memorial Day, weaving together personal memories and beliefs about life's guiding plan. Join me as I share experiences that have shaped who I am today, inviting you to ponder your own journey.

Recently I have had thoughts of what I consider defining moments in my life or incidences that stood out so much that I had to stop and take note of them.
Today I just want to share a few of these with you, each of these incidents are so much more bigger than the narrative I will give of them here but.....

THE PIWER OF A PRAYING MOM:

This particular one is not peculiar to me. It's a common joke among my siblings!
While growing up (especially after we had left home for university/college), we found out that most of the time that we were doing something we were not supposed to/ being sorely tempted to do something that we would have ended up regretting, your phone would suddenly ring and it would be mom, and her opening statement would be

"where are you"?

And as soon as you had the answer to that out, you will get the follow up question of

"what are you doing?"

I remember vividly one time that it happened and I had to answer that question,  at the time I was on my way to somewhere that I could not be entirely truthful about.

I managed the conversation and we made small talk and all and she got off the phone but I couldn't get on with my life.

It was like God coming to Adam at the end of the day and asking

"Adam, where are you?"

"Adam, what have you done?"

After that call, I considered my decisions and where I currently was and purposed to do better.

We(my siblings and I) grew up dreading that/those question(s), because we knew that most times we didn't like the truthful answers to those questions.

P.s: we have never really talked about the truthful answers to these questions amongst ourselves, maybe I will bring it up at the next family forum 🤔.
After all memorial weekend wouldn't be complete if I don't shake already shaky tables right?

THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT:

Choosing a course to study in the university didn't come to me easily
I was (still am) brilliant enough to have excelled at anything I wanted but I didn't know what to do. After some back and forth, we(the family weighed in on this) settled on medicine because I really loved biology so they thought I should play to my strength and so it was settled.

I thought I had the brainpower and that it would be a walk in the park, little did I know that life depends on several other factors outside your control.

I took my first JAMB along with my WAEC had a 230 score (not bad, but also not enough to get into medicine).
Okay, we re-strategize, study some more and hit harder in another year, and that was what we did. Part of our strategy was choosing schools closer to home (where we might have some "say" and ease of travel) including my state university ABSU!
Score: 245 and an extremely good post UTME score
Verdict: enough for medicine in ABSU but I wasn't going to get an offer because I had made them my second choice
BUT if I was willing to consider optometry/dentistry, they were willing to have me
Me: I was absolutely vexed! Vexed at the denial, vexed at the injustice of it all and vexed enough to tell them "away with your offer"!
My dad asked me several times if I was willing to pass up the offer and my answer was a staunch "Yes"

This meant that I was going to stay at home for ANOTHER YEAR! Another year of uncertainty, and another year of going back to the drawing board and hoping that you don't come up short and another year in which some of my classmates from secondary school would be heading to the 3rd year of University while I stayed at home battling JAMB
Despite it all, my answer remained unchanged.

Back to studying! And in an effort to avoid diminishing returns, my father contacted a friend of his, a known physicist to brush me up on concepts.
The man attested to the fact that I was not wanting in the academic arena
And JAMB season came around AGAIN

And this time around, I did something differently.

I took the forms in their packet and gave it to my Dad to pray and ask God what school He wanted me to go to. I don't know how this idea came about (i refuse to take credit for it) but I suppose that it was God at work.
Daddy looked at me weirdly when I made that request, but he took the forms and accepted to do what I requested.

A few mornings later, he told me to come pick up my form that it was ready, and then he said "I think God wants to you to go to UNN"
UNN? My mom's alma mater? Also a school known at the time for incessant strikes??
And he said "yes"

I took my forms and walked out and filled it out with UNN as my first choice(I don't remember if I had anything else as second choice, or maybe UNN was both my first and second choices)

When my Physics tutor learnt of my choice of school, he turned to my Dad and asked him why he let me make that choice and if he did not care if I graduated or not
And Daddy just smiled, he shook his head sadly but we went on with our lessons

Jamb result: 265(I also did well in the post UTME)
I said to myself, certainly, no one can deny this!
And the admission list came out and I will was offered admission to UNN but not for Medicine, instead for Biochemistry!!!!

What????
God!!! I thought you said to go???
Was your word not true??? Did we not hear from you???
All of these questions and more sped through my mind
And of course I cried a river and grumbled loudly.
After 3 years and I still didn't even end up where I wanted?
I packed up my bag, saddled my imaginary horse and rode into the sunrise albeit unhappily.

And I started acclimatizing to the new environment and my study requirements.
I went about my business quietly.
As we approached matriculation, there was excitement in the air.
Two days or so before matriculation, I was heading to an evening class or something, and someone stops me and says
Are you not Chioma Ukanwa?

Me: yes I am (the one and only)

What are you doing here in Biochem? She asked 

Me: that's my assigned department, duhhhhh

Her your name is on the last list brought out for medicine

What list?

I didn't even know that they brought out a list for admission!I didn't even go to check the list because I think at that point it had been torn off or something.
I made my way to the medicine matriculation hall on the morning of the matriculation and lo and behold, my name was on that list (that was the best confirmation) and I signed off .
Thankfully the courses for Biochemistry and Medicine for the first year didn't differ much!

And the best part? I spent EXACTLY 6 years in school which is the required number of years for medicine in Nigeria! There was no interruption at all
Infact, when the school went on strike in my third year, the college of medicine refused to join in and marched us to our 2nd MBBS exams (that was one time I wouldn't have minded a strike though!

It might not always look like it but God is never late

MAN, KNOW THYSELF:

I had a sheltered upbringing, add this to a mildly introverted book loving day dreaming girl and voila you have ME!

I am the girl that my daddy will drive to school and check me in. He will drop by at my boarding school to check on my younger sister and I just because he was going back to Owerri from Enugu. Even as a mom, my dad will still pack our boxes, follow us to the international airport and still point out check in tips while looking after the kids. And my mom? She will call you every hour to ensure you are safe.

But I digress....

I would choose a book over a party and going to church was a choice already made for you at home.

And then, I am in university, alone and having to make and live my own choices.
And I see all the flashiness of life that I don't even know existed (oh well, my face was almost always buried in a book), and i begin to feel inadequate.
I am grappling with these feelings, and I didn't know who to talk to or even what to talk about.

I wanted to belong but it was not in my nature to be loud and I couldn't force it. I wanted to seem to know all the answers to life's questions, to have been to all the happening places but I would rather be on my bed at the end of a long week than hangout.

I was a quiver of contradictions and a messy internal battle

And then I met him........

He was cool and sophisticated, the ultimate socialite or so I thought
He drove and talked about cool places.

Unlike me that only had book knowledge, he had experiential knowledge because he had lived the things that I only dreamed of
And for some reason, he liked me (I think).

His words were rougher than I was used to but it was novelty for me
His jokes and play sometimes bordered on cruel but I made excuses because I thought he was a status to be attained and I was way too willing to climb

And God intervened!

He forced me to move out of his circle and proximity
It gave me the time and space to find me again
We still maintained contact but it was not the daily contact that was chirping away at the very fabric of who I was
I had enough time between each contact for God to attempt to rebuild that which was broken down
And the contact became even less frequent when I had to move away for my clinicals

One day, he called me that he was coming to see me
I was excited because I knew he was going to bring good conversation (he has always been a great conversationalist, even though controversial).

He had a way of trying to rationalize the most insane idea for example, he would say that "women should be happy when their man cheats on them because it is a sign that he loves them"
SMH!

And so he came around, and we were talking, and in a bid to show how world -wise I had become, I added a curse word to something that I had said
And he went rigid, stopped what he was doing and turned to look at me for some seconds (it felt like eternity), then said with all seriousness

"Don't ever use such words in my presence!!! If I wanted curse words, I know the people to go to, you would not have made that list!!"

I apologized out loud to him and silently to myself.

My silent question, which I did not have the courage to voice (I know he would have told me if I had dared to ask would have been "what then do you come to me for?")

People know and come to us for the light and wholesomeness that we carry and yet we seek so much to please that we begin to imbibe darkness and inadvertently diminish our value without even being aware of it

Just as the Greek philosophers penned down:

Oh Man, Know Thyself!