Growing up was a lot of fun to me, especially my experiences with my two childhood friends, Joseph and Alaba. Our parents were family friends and their relationship transcends to the offsprings.
The three of us were born within the span of 12 months. I am the oldest and Joseph is next to me with a nine month gap while he is older than Alaba with two months.
We were enrolled in the same primary school - that was when the close friendship began. We walked to and from school daily. During lunch in school, we take turns to present our individual food or money and eat or spend together respectively. Whenever one of us was unable to bring food to school, he didn't feel sad and hungry because the food from the other two would serve him.
We were discussing during a particular lunch break in school when Joseph suggested that we should be contributing part of our lunch money daily in order to purchase wristwatches for the three of us.
'I think this is a nice idea," Alaba supported the suggestion immediately.
"We can buy one per month and by November we would have bought all the three since we just started September," Joseph went further to suggest the method of actualizing it.
I bought into the idea and I gave my approval.
We executed our plan diligently and by the end November, all the three watches were ready. We had a Christmas full of fanfare and very classic. Our parents were equally proud of our prudency and the unity of purpose that we maintained to implement our plan.
The praises we got and the elegance that the watches added to our outing made us decide to repeat the same thing the following year - this time, we decided to contribute to purchase shoes. We started in September and gave ourselves a similar timeline with the previous year - three months. Just like we did in the previous year, we didn't reveal our plan to anyone including our parents. We wanted to surprise them again.
In the third week of October, we returned home to meet Joseph's family in a sad mood. Their flat was next to ours and on most evenings, my father would sit with his father to chat about many topics while we, the kids, came together to solve our school assignments or sit to read and analyze story books.
We were doing our assignment as usual when I overheard the discussion between my father and Joseph's father about the inhumane attitude of some employers. Joseph's father was hissing intermittently with dull eyes. He lost focus. The sadness in him was visible.
It was the following day that we got to know that Joseph's father had lost his job. He was the breadwinner of the family and the loss of the job destabilized the family. The following weeks were difficult for the family and the survival of the family was threatened.
The usual lunch money being given to Joseph started to fluctuate. This affected his financial commitments to our project. Joseph became quiet and reserved. We managed to buy the shoe for October. For two weeks in November, Joseph wasn't able to contribute. He was totally sad about this. Joseph's mood was contagious. I became an unhappy boy.
A few days to the end of November, the balance in our safe was far from the amount to purchase the shoes.
Our plan worked with the hand of the clock the previous year but in the present year, our plan wasn't in agreement with time.
The timeline was over without getting the three shoes.
My father saw me in an unusual state of quietness and moody.
"What's the problem?" My father asked.
"I am fine."
"Did your teacher scold you in school?" He probed further.
I initially didn't want to reveal what was troubling me but there was no way we were going to get the third shoe without a third party intervention. I took my time to explain everything to my father.
"That's good of you. The three of you will go far in life," my father offered prayers.
"How much is the balance?" He asked.
He reached out to his pocket and gave me the amount that I mentioned.
We bought the shoes and our Christmas was fun as planned.
Joseph was very happy with the development. It was hope rekindled.
That friendship is something I still miss till date. It was pure and undiluted.
