LIFE
What is your passion?
Over the last long vacation holiday, I enrolled my son in a music class at his school because he loves music. He loves to sing and dance and play on his drums. The boy sometimes responds to my questions in song. So, I thought, start him young.
Everyone in my family thinks that my son looks very much like one of my late uncles who was musically gifted, so the fact that he loves music as much as he does is, for them, confirmation that my uncle has returned in my son. According to my grandmother, when my uncle was a child, he would use the cover of her Singer sewing machine as a drum and she would chase him off and threaten him with bodily harm if he were to break any part of her machine. She never made much of it until she went to Nsukka to attend his graduation from the University of Nigeria. At the first of many events leading up to the graduation ceremony, a graduating student walked up to my grandmother to ask her how long my uncle had been studying music because he was a master on any keyboard. In their years as undergraduates, he played the pipe organ at many school and church events. My grandmother was tongue-tied; she had no idea that her son could play any musical instruments, or that he had any interest in the arts because he was a science student. It was during that visit to Nsukka that she heard him play for the first time.
By the time I knew my uncle, he was the organist for his church in Port Harcourt. He was also part of the church choir, which rehearsed weekly, on Thursdays, I believe. On Sunday mornings, before his duties at church, he had a programme at the state-run radio station. These were commitments that he stayed true to even as he ran a business that included a car dealership and a construction company. My uncle lost his sight due to complications from diabetes, and expectedly, life as he knew it changed. The one thing that remained constant was his love for music. When my grandfather died, as had been the tradition at all church-held family events, he played the organ at the funeral service – he played all the hymns from memory. At the end of the service, it was hard to tell which tears were for my uncle and which were for my grandfather. When I would go to visit him at home, often he was listening to music, but sometimes he was playing the piano – his days of darkness were filled with music.
On Independence day last year, I attended a choir concert held in commemoration of the 85th birthday of another music icon in Port Harcourt – Alabo Dr. Charles InkoTariah Wokoma. Alabo was the conductor of the choir at the same church where my uncle was the organist. He also put together a group called the Choral Voices of Port Harcourt, which is celebrating its 45th year this year. The Choral Voices of Port Harcourt celebrates music, particularly classical music and performs four concerts annually. Alabo had a long and successful career as a medical doctor in the area of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. When the concert began, I looked over at Alabo and I could see his hands moving, conducting the choir, anticipating every note. Often, he was nodding, carried away by the music. By the middle of the concert, when I looked over at him again, he was holding his hands in his lap, and it seemed as though he was consciously keeping his hands from doing what they have been so accustomed to doing in accompaniment to music for over 60 years.
The birthday concert brought a lot of memories of my uncle because there were people there, including Alabo, who knew my uncle and had shared musical experiences with him. But I came out with an important thought – outside of work and the things that I do to earn a living, what is my passion? Sometimes, we get so caught up in work that we forget to live, to enjoy life outside of the walls of our offices and the sheets of paper in our thick office files. Do I have a passion that can take me into old age, like Alabo, or through adversity, like my uncle who was blind for seven years before he passed away?
I have a friend who is a lawyer and presently a commissioner in her state, and when I asked her what her plans are for when her ‘commissionership’ is over, she said that she wanted to take some time off and enrol in some courses. The courses she named took me by surprise, but pleasantly so. She is considering a course in gardening and flower arrangement, another for Sunday school teachers, and even one in etiquette. This is a lady who, before her appointment, had a successful career in law practice, and now has an impressive achievement record as a commissioner. It is good that she wants to explore other parts of herself outside the law.
I like to bake, but I don’t do it much these days because the resulting products do not aid in the battle against the middle-age spread, and besides, my son is a simple three year old – he would choose to drink garri over a slice of cake (I have been told by those who find him charming to stop saying that he has village taste buds).
Before I forget, after my son’s first music lesson, the teacher made a point of looking for me after school to tell me that my son is gifted and I must do everything to encourage him in music, even if I want him to become a doctor in future (the kind of chat that makes parents’ heads so big that they float in the air). I have promised to do so. It seems the young lad is well on his way to developing his passion. I, on the other hand, am still searching – gardening maybe. How about you?
