Respect is reciprocal

When I started blogging on Tuesday, the 14th of February 2017, I promised myself that I'd blog everyday. To God be the glory, the stories have been coming and I've been writing. Now I have a lot of respect for writers ( one writer is particularly close to my heart). It takes a lot of mental energy to write. First you think and then you put it down on paper, sometimes I just open a new page like now and start typing and then it starts to flow. (Amysco, the writer.lol)


An issue that bothers me is the attitude of some of our seniors. I have encountered some of them that the experiences left me in tears. In tears because that was the only way I could vent.


I have an eighty six year old father who is as polite as can be. When you speak to him on the phone he's the first to greet you even before you say hello. He's so gentle, soft spoken and he genuinely wishes people well.


My father was not always like this, I was 5 years old when he retired from active service at the age of 50 and I was his eighth child. He moved to Lokpanta (an exotic island somewhere in the map of Abia state.lol).


Although he moved to my hometown while we remained in the city, he was very much in the lives of all his children. When we were bad, my mother would first flog you three rounds (each round involved uncountable strokes of the cane)and then shipped you to the village for more intensive rounds of flogging from my father.


My father was very strict and even harsh sometimes. If he sent you to his bedroom to get an item, you'd be in so much trouble if you didn't find it. (These days, children just go to their parents or even scream from where they are, "mummy I can't find it")


He would break a branch from the guava tree and flog whoever got on his nerves at that point. He was a tough man and so I can't reconcile his softness now with the tough man that I used to know.


My father calls me Amy in a way that melts my heart, and I have no doubt that he loves me and indeed every one of his children deeply. This is expected.


The remarkable thing is that he is equally very nice to strangers now more than when we were growing up. Then he shielded us from people and we his children often gossiped him that he was a snob.


I visited him recently, he pleaded with me to wait and eat my favourite food of roasted yam and oil. He also made sure that the driver who took me was well entertained, when the driver's brand of drink wasn't available in the house, he quickly sent someone to buy exactly what the driver wanted.


On our way back, the driver said to me, "Aunty, your father just made an impact in my life in these few hours" I asked him why and he said, such an established man made him feel very important, he said that he was touched by the way he made sure he was comfortable in his home, "a mere driver like me" he added.


That got me thinking about our older generation, that I call "seniors". (If you call them old, they will ask you if they are older than your mother)


I asked myself, "Why are some of them very nasty?" I've had some bad experiences with a few of them. I was in church one day and I helped this senior lady beside me wipe her seat, she didn't even say thank you. She looked through me like I wasn't there.


One engaged my services, after she put me through a stressful period trying to satisfy her, she still accused me of not disclosing some information. As if that wasn't enough she refused to pay me the complete fee agreed. The next time I saw her, she called out to me with a huge smile on her face, I fled for my life.


My standard for measuring seniors now is my father. He says thank you for the simplest gesture and he wouldn't short change anyone.


Another senior (I won't say the sex) was raining abuses on a woman and even called the woman poor. My father would never say that. He is now more focused on making his remaining years very peaceful, he is constantly preparing himself for heaven. He says that God has been kind enough to grant him long life and so there's is no reason for him to miss heaven at his age.


I have met some seniors especially men (lol) who are so loving that you almost want to give them a teddy bear hug. Some people make excuses that some seniors are as rude as they are because of old age but I don't agree with this notion at all.


Being old does not give one the right to talk down on people. Respect is reciprocal. The only reason I will never talk back at seniors who are rude to me is because I was raised to respect my elders. But the elders should please respect the youths.


I love to hang out with the seniors because I learn a lot from them but then I know when to stay far away from them. Only a senior can tell you that your breath stinks, or that you have body odour.


They can almost tear your skirt or dress trying to pull it down in a bid to help you cover your nakedness. They will give you a scarf to cover your cleavage and remind you that you are a woman. One once told me that makeup makes me look like a masquerade. (That left me speechless)


Regardless of how mad they drive us sometimes, our world would actually be boring without them. I just hope I'm a peaceful senior in my own time. (I doubt this very much)