I recently started writing again, after a 5 year hiatus. It suffices to say that it feels great, especially because this time around my writings are not intended only as an outlet to vent or to express myself, but came out of the desire to share my experiences, past and present as I navigate through life. My blog which will be launched soon, is geared toward women, as women have that incredible ability to draw on each other, to connect through meaningful relationships that their male counterparts can only scratch the surface off of. Additionally I think we have a special place in this world, and go through certain challenges that only other women can relate to, and so, I strive to create a safe platform to help channel that. Some of you know my passion toward women as I share this in my column in the print version of DUNIA Magazine’s The Women’s Corner.
Another passion of mine is music, I love singing and listening to good, edifying and well put together music; one of the singers I have come to love is Mandisa. Most of the American public would remember her for her stellar journey on American Idol. Although she didn’t win, she impressed both the judges (including Simon Cowell) and the public with her candor, as well as her talent and won the hearts of many.
As I listen to her more and more I realize that the thing that is most attractive about her is how real she is … she even has an album entitled What if We were Real. I realized that I could connect with that and decided that my blog was going to have the same color: reality, honesty … not limited to the good times, but the bad also.
There is just something about being real that communicates better than a bunch of advices; it speaks more volume than a lesson well drafted. I realized in my everyday life that people are more encouraged when I tell them, “I have struggled with what you are struggling with, I have fought that fight, and sometimes lost, but found the courage to try again and I am slowly getting on the side” than putting up a face of “All is well with me and I am strong”. So I decided to give you a glimpse of that real talk this morning.
I met a wonderful couple at work this week. One thing I love about patient care is that you get to meet people and talk with them. It is an incredible honor and privilege to be able to hold hands when they have no one else to lean on, to listen to them talk about their fears as they face a difficult diagnosis, to share in their most vulnerable moments. When I first got into that line of work, I thought my job was only to help physically, but as time goes on, I realize how much one can learn from each of those situations the patients face.
One of these instances is my patient of the week. She had surgery to repair a fractured hip from a fall. Her husband of 56 years had been on a ladder and she noticed that he was about to fall, she ran to help and he ended up falling on her; he came out of it with just a few scrapes and she ended up in the hospital under the knife and a painful rehabilitation awaiting her (as well as spending her 80th birthday in a hospital). She had not hesitated running to his aide as there was no telling what kind of fall he would have had or what he would have broken had she not been there to break his fall … and if she had to do it all over again, she would … Wow! Countless lessons can be learned from that, but the one thing it reminded me of, is the importance of relationships in our life – spousal relationships, friendship, parental love, you name it.
I have had the privilege of having good friends in my life, very good friends. Unfortunately I can’t say that I have appreciated them all, nor treated them well. In fact, I can count a few that I have alienated and caused to run away and avoid me like one avoids the pest. A few years ago I went through one of the hardest hurdles in my life. Taking wrong turns, making poor choices led me there; it was my fall from grace and could have very well been the end of me as a person, inside and out. I got depressed, contemplated suicide, and was barely alive though I was breathing. I was so ashamed I didn’t have the strength nor the ability to draw on my faith, and cry out to the one person I knew intellectually could get me out of there. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t even sure that He wanted me back. How could He? I had dragged His name through the mud … though I knew better and was simply not worthy of a second chance.
When I was at my lowest, I realized the importance of relationships: my mother, some friends that are more like sisters and brothers. They were there for me. Loving me when I didn’t think I should be loved, praying for me and speaking faith and positivity when I had no eyes to see it. Crying with me and for me, speaking truth and correcting where the need was. I would take a few steps, then fall back again, and they would not leave. They were there when everybody else ran out the door. When I look back at that 2 years period of time, I can’t say enough about how much they helped to break an even deeper fall.
Today I cherish them and am grateful for each of them. If you do have one or more of these special people in your life, don’t forget to let them know how much they mean to you and to cultivate these friendships. Better yet, be one – be a friend, a brother, a sister for someone else. One that sticks with them no matter what, in truth and honesty, able to correct in love, but also encourage and embrace. We don’t always have time to tend to these relationships, but at the end of the day how much time does it really take? If you do it right, despite time and distance, you will always be there for each other, to break the fall without hesitation.
Also by Marie Chokote – The Women’s Corner:
Ongoing DUNIA discussion
In your opinion, which of the following is most critical for success?
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Reading the piece by Marie Chokote titled 'BREAKING THE FALL' reminds me very starkly of an incidence that occurred in June 1990. It brought to the fore vivid pictures of a fall I had on that fateful evening of June 7th 1990, in a faraway little town of Shira-Yana, in Bauchi State, North-East Nigeria.In that incidence, I had taken up a banking job and was posted to that little town as an officer in charge of Agricultural Loans Administration. I had come to take my wife who lived in Nigeria to West Germany, where I was doing my postgraduate studies. And was barely three weeks old in Nigeria. I had decided then not to return to Europe in order to settle down and take care of my wife. I married her a year earlier and I wanted her settle down with in Germany and deliver our baby there but my pregnant wife was denied residence visa to live with me in Germany. I had to abandon my intendended doctoral programme in Technische Universitat to be back in Nigeria in order to witness the birth of my first child. Taking up the bank job was necessary to enable me take care of my new family and thus, I had to accept the posting to that remote but serene corner of Northern Nigeria.
I was painting the ceiling of one of the rooms in the flat I had just rented in anticipation of soon to be born baby when an accident occurred. My wife was helping me to hold down a rickety ladder while I was doing some paintwork when suddenly the ladder broke in two. I impulsively I held the broken upper half with my legs and grabbed the ceiling fan. The fan began to give way under my weight breaking the main ceiling hold. Below was my wife, and to avoid falling on her, and on our unborn baby, I had to grab the wood, and a large nail tore into my arm. With nothing else to hold, I had to allow the nail to tear through my flesh until it got stuck at a thick portion of my skin. It held me and I froze while the nail tore deeper into my arm. I hung suspended from falling on my wife. She gave birth to our first son Julian the next morning, having fallen into labour that same night. I was glad, even in my pains that I did what I had to do to save my wife and baby. Given a second chance, I will gladly do it again, were the options to present themselves again in like manner. That young man will be rounding up his BSc degree Management, next month, from the University of Ilorin-Nigeria. I bore that huge scar on my right arm till date. It symbolises an eloquent testimony to the heroic act of breaking a fall to save a loved one.
Chris Ilogho, your story is indeed a touching example of how far we can go for our loved ones and how much we are willing and able to do for those we care about. Thanks for sharing and for reading duniamagazine