I learned a lot of things while growing up. I grew up in a very special family. And what I learned goes beyond what books could/would have taught me. We were all seven, including my mom and dad. One of the things that made us special was the fact that we had no females, five male children. You can guess what we've made our mom go through, and you can guess what we children would have done for each other too.
We didn't have it all, but we had each other, and we were content. Our mornings start with my mom knocking on the bedroom door to wake us up for morning devotion. We don't usually do that on Saturdays because we often do family night vigils every Friday night. But on other days it's a must for you to get up and move to the sitting room, no matter how sleepy we were. My mom is always in charge of the singing, while my dad does the preaching, and when it comes to prayers, you never can tell; my dad might just call your name to lead the prayer. And I can't deny that those few minutes before the day starts taught us a lot about faith, value, gratitude, discipline, and all that is still very much effective to date.
My dad happens to be a very great storyteller too; that is done mostly at night. He can just start by cracking jokes and all. After telling us some stories, he would make some sounds with his mouth and tell us, assuming the story told was a lie, we wouldn't have heard his mouth sound. It was funny then, and we believed it. And anytime my dad cracks jokes too, it's always fun. I can't even forget how we fight because of meat. My mom would be like, "You won't kill me o, I didn't kill my mother." But then, a mother of boys should expect that much. Those little smiles, scoldings, laughs, and all made me believe that love isn't about perfection; it's about us having each other's back every time, even if we fought.
Let's talk about Sundays too. You can't lazy around on a Sunday morning, and you can't even say you won't go to church. We all have a duty, whether you are fetching water, washing the car, ironing, sweeping, cleaning the rooms, and all. We don't cook on Sunday mornings. And all of those did go beyond just house chores; it was teamwork portraying itself like routines/chores. And that taught me responsibility, cleanliness, and the beauty in contributing to something.
My dad will always tell us to remember where we come from no matter where life takes us. And that I have kept to heart; it has helped me navigate my way in life, it has helped shape the way I treat others and all. And my mom, a very kind woman, and Dad too—I've learned a lot from them, and I can see/say that what they did back then, we the children are already benefiting from it in the various places we've found ourselves. My parents are the type who can accommodate anybody. I can count up to four different people they accommodated for years in our house, some students, some till they were able to secure an apartment of their own, and some a whole family. And it was not as if we had our own house then; it was rented. Even when we later built ours, they still didn't stop. I have learned a lot from them, from love, to selflessness to compassion and all.
Now, I can say that my family didn't just raise me; they built me. They planted all that's needed to live life in me. And no matter where I find myself or where I go, those values keep me grounded, reminding me of who I am, what's expected of me, and who I'm meant to be.
