First, Life.

What’s with us humans and sex? Funny thing, I sat through a 30 minute lecture about the pros and cons of sex on my birthday this year. All the good it can do and all the bad it can bring. Dr. Mrs. Daramola sure know how to tread those paths. I was just nodding and grinning from ear to ear like an idiot. I’ll let you know what I’m thankful for about sex and the sex lecture later.

It was in 1992, if memory serves me right. I was a JSS 2 student at Unity Secondary School, Ikere-Ekiti. The school coaster bus had just dropped what load it was carrying and was heading towards the parking lot. The playful bunch we were, we loved to jump unto moving vehicles that had come to drop items at the school kitchen behind the dining halls. This fateful day, the sun had found its way across the football pitch beyond the school gate, turning the western sky crimson. We were idling around the car park, some friends and I, waiting for dinner bell when the bus emerged between the dining halls. We positioned ourselves to have a go at it, as we usually do. The school drivers were also sport with their half-hearted discouragements and threats.  Now, I’d been only successful with the pick-up trucks in this tryst. But on this day, urged on by the excitement on my friends’ faces, I ignored the thump of my heart against the ribcage as fear heightened in me not to try. But before I could decide otherwise, the coaster bus came along with the door open. Some brave hearts were already aboard, cheering on the rest of us still trying for the open door. The bus’ speed did not help matters. I made my attempt when the guy ahead of me jumped on. Those running up behind me were as impatient for me to jump on as those already aboard. I reached out for the door handle as I’d seen the others do. I lifted my right leg , putting the spring on the left, hoping to pull myself inside with the door handle. But I didn’t feel the metal in my hand. It was at this point I realized that I had not caught the handle. It was all in an instant too late to make a second attempt. I knew I was falling. I hit the ground hard and turned my head and saw the giant treading on the tires. They appeared big from down there. I got up and dusted my house wear to keep my mind from my shaking body as the bus passed the round-about to the Administrative Block. Two guys walked up to me from the chasing pack and started congratulating me with astonished faces. Then the whole thing hit home when they explained what they saw: I was inches away from being crushed in the head by the giant right rear tires of that mammoth of a bus. How it did not happen, neither they nor I could fathom. That was the last time I ever tried the stupid stunt. 

Moi, on my first birthday.

I’m glad I made another 365 days in one piece. Many waters, as they say, have passed under the bridge. I’m thankful for being here. Yes. For being alive, am grateful. That to me is very important. Millions of spermatozoa that we left the scrotum together didn’t complete the race to the ova. I did. I may not have made it through the embryonic stage. So many factors could make the uterus expel its contents, but by formative crib was just so comfy for the whole 9 months. The wriggling and struggle to come out from the cervix could have been fatal.  Been sick many times, as in very sick. Fell from the first floor all the way down in 1988, I only have a desert patch at the back of my head to serve as a reminder. The other day I wanted to cross the road, and before I knew it, the car screeched to a stop just millimetres from me. It could have crushed my 7 year old frame completely. Once I was a passenger, and at another time I was the driver when the vehicles I was in decided to go on fire. I came out both times unhurt.

At one time, I wanted to peel off the cable with my teeth so as to make a connection; just that I forgot that the other end was still connected to the generator. I had the whole left side of me, from my eyeball, elbow, to knee cap almost refusing to work again. The skin on the joints  were peeling off of their own accord. Another electric shock at an earlier time gave me lacerations on my tongue and made me bleed from the mouth, amongst other things. I could have been roasted.

So many more close shaves with death that I’ve had. But here I am today. 

I value life a lot. I can whine about my failures and disappointments only because the warm breaths from my nostrils keep coming. I am not taking it for granted. As my purpose for existence keeps unfolding, I really appreciate the Giver of life for still granting me access. 

My resolve is simple: to deserve to be here for as long as God wants me to. That is the premise for the next six things I’m grateful for, the first of which is the Life for my life. Would you care to find out?