Category: The Journey
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Keep the joy of first moments with newborns!
The first moment they laid eyes on him was breathtaking. Because of the pandemic, no visitors were allowed around hospital grounds for the pandemics grip was ground breaking, heartbreaking too, for all the lives lost to poor leadership and decision-making. That we were heading home with baby about 36 hours later following his arrival was…
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Keep an oasis of light for a mother’s love.
I see life as a journey. For some, that journey may take up to 86 years. For others, few months. Last year, my little nephew completed his journey in 10 years. He returned back to the one who first called him, first framed him, first loved him. We all have to return back to him.…
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Keep knowing that we are never meant to walk alone!
Our room was shaped like a square with a baby cribbed next to a wall covered in grey paint. There was a grey rocking chair for breastfeeding and a silver and white changing table stood next to the window awaiting the arrival of baby. There were no baby rooms. I was never a decorator mom.…
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Keep the beauty and brilliance of black mom light!
I begin this week in awe of becoming a mother for the 4th time. My last baby arrived this week, last year. The pandemic kept us all distracted. This was the 4th month of mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns. It was also a time where the virus was so debilitating that I feared a…
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Keep remembering God with all your plans including your home!
Exactly one year ago today, we closed on our home. The experience seems hazy now looking back as it was at the beginning of a pandemic and I was expecting a new baby. Looking back, we didn’t do all the things people do when they purchase new homes. There were no housewarming or gathering of…
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Keep Fela’s ‘water no get enemy’ in mind for sustainability.
Fela’s anthem ‘water no get enemy,’ has always been a favorite song for me. If you want to wash, you will use water. If you want to cook, you’ll use water too. If your head is hot, water will help you cool it down. And if you want your child to grow, use water. Such…
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Keep mentors who plant and harvest in you!
There is an Igbo saying that states: The cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household. It’s voice though is the property of the neighborhood. Every single thing we do in life, has a ripple effect. Our actions maybe ours alone. But they too matter for others. I remember growing up listening to…
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Keep being fire!
Have you heard about Fire? Not the real thing as in flames or burning or combustion. But a quarterly literary magazine set up by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett and John P. Davis, to do one thing one only (in my opinion): to express the truth…
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Keep Pidgin English and other broken English in mind!
Bell Hooks took me on a journey today. The past few days have been full of work-related rejections with academic papers I wrote, one protocol and another a debate paper that I will dwell on another day. For now, transforming the language used by the rejectors is a profound passion. Bell Hooks reminded me of…
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Keep being as patient as vultures or Udene in Igbo!
I saw a vulture up close today. It is as menacing as literature has depicted it to be. My middle son actually saw it first. It was perched on our grounds and it stopped him in his tracks while running towards me. He kept saying I can’t come and I kept saying, just come. He…
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Keep Clef Club in mind as you remain a bold black woman in academia!
When generations look back at the history of this nation, they will ask questions? Like why is the story of this country so incomplete? Why do we know so little of what it truly meant to be enslaved? Or why did it take 156 years for us make Juneteenth a holiday? They will also ask…
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Keep the love of Fathers in mind!
Brene Brown in her book ‘Daring Greatly,’ defined love, not as something you give or get, but as something you nurture and grow. She noted that it’s a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them–we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 