Priceless gift

This week started well. Yet another feather was added in my cap when all the years I have lived so far were written off. It cried while everyone around it was laughing. Indeed, the seed of life which was planted 9 months ago finally burgeon forth and Muchiri Jnr was born. As I watched the baby bundled in its cradle, I couldn’t help but imagine how all of us started as precious princes and princesses. The odysseys of our lives may be odd but that notwithstanding, our births were all noble.

I went home thinking of the best gift to buy and give the baby. Well, gifts of gold, and of incense and of myrrh are what they took to baby Jesus but those are too far from my reach. I decided to bring my mind back from Bethlehem, I sought to know what traditional people in my community gave. First stop was at my friend who has a comparatively better understanding of our culture. He told me something mind boggling, that in our culture, when a baby was born, bananas and sugarcane where the prime gifts. This made me laugh! I decided to come back to my times, I’m yet to ask a modern parent about it, but I guess a play station is what they have in mind. No, I’m not satisfied. A timeless gift is what I’m imagining. Any ideas from you?

Friends, excuse me for starting with a digression. Although, it is a true and recent story but that’s not my point. Today I want to ask you this, “What is it that we all want to give to the next generation and leave it with them?” Is it wealth, education, love, corruption, war, hunger, a torn country? And this is a question I ask to all of you. On the eve of his inauguration, Barack Obama wrote an open letter to his angelic Malia and Shasha. In the letter he says and I quote “When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me – about how I’d make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want …… but then the two of you came into my world …. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important any more. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours …. And I realised that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfilment in yours. In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President”. Those to me, are words describing the height of parenthood.

What’s my message? I ask you to think of what you would want to give to your children and to your children’s children? And this is a question I’m asking you who would rather party than marry, you in a hurry to marry and you who are happy in marriage. Search within your hearts and you will find that the timeless gift to the next generation is a better environment, a better country, a better world. It’s the best bequest!