The final prelude to my three part essay titled; My Grandmother, Her Gods and I
Behold, attached below, is the Part III and the final essay written to celebrate the iconic life of Igwego Dike, The Atu Nneozo, and the matriarch of the Anueyiagu clan. In these essays, l echoed her strength in endurance and her transformative powers of perseverance. I affirmed with immense gratitude, her courageous life and for the lasting impact of her iconic and endearing words. And to her, and to her strong gods, I said; Right On!
READ ALSO: The prelude
These essays were some kind of tribute to my grandmother, and dedicated to her elegance, poise and virtue. In her, I discovered that virtue needs and demands courage, and that the sustenance of this virtue requires help from on high, and from the gods of my grandmother both temporal and spiritual.
Also, I found out that through this same virtue and dedication to our Maker, we purify ourselves of wickedness, selfishness, tribalism, racism, cronyism, falseness, hatred, evil, and all the other vices that have polluted our world, and inhibited our successful and peaceful coexistence as humans on earth.
In writing these essays, I recalled an answer my grandmother offered when l asked her why people revered her and considered her to be prestigious and important. With a slight smile on her beautiful but stern face, she replied me thus: “Because I am worth it”. Her powerful words and her deep spirituality inspired me to recognize her inherent value and talents, prompting me to passionately write about her some 60 years after she was brutally murdered.
As we celebrate our forebears, may we remember and honour the dogma that a tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds; that a good deed is never forgotten or lost, and that those who are of the good tree, sow goodness, kindness and greatness, and in return, gather love, peace and prosperity.
As I always advocate, those who have the time and patience to read my essays, please do so, and those who do not care about things like this, I apologise, and ask them to ignore and move on.
Best wishes!
- Okey Anueyiagu is the author of Biafra, The Horrors of War, The Story of A Child Soldier
