TILL DEATH DO US PART- - - - ---and somebody to lean on.

My parents, pictured after the church service where they renewed their vows at the celebration of their sixtieth wedding anniversary on Christmas eve, 2005.
I just thought about them as their anniversary
draws near again.
( I look a lot like my Pa, actually like his mother, I was told) When I was little, people would tease him saying---- I gbolu nwa gi nke a n'onu) Also got his carefree nature and keen sense of humour.

Watching my parents, Joseph and Mercy Odunukwe at the celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary, I couldn't help but grasp the full meaning of the phrase----- till death do us part. There we have these two, who have been around each other for so long that they can read each other's body language and most probably mind. At ninety three years old at the anniversary celebration my father looked sharp in his suit.

He had married sixty years earlier after putting in years at Dennis Grammar School Onitsha. He is most likely the oldest surviving old boy. Then it was to Awka College and then to Umudike College of Agriculture. He was finally ready to settle down. He married his best friend's cousin, Mercy Onyemelukwe, a shy but strong willed school teacher who was still nursing the grudge of not being able to attend Elelenwa girls school which had accepted her but there were no funds. She was not really thrilled about getting married but that was what she was supposed to do. Her sisters still tell stories of their anxiety over the possibility of her not showing up at the wedding and their big sigh of relief when they heard her say----"I do." A particular aunt always loves to tell of her surprise at seeing my mother some months after the wedding looking as if she was in the family way, and then she went on to a total of eleven children and being together with Jos, as they call my father, for sixty years.

My parents had embarked on a mission working for the Anglican church all over Igboland, starting from Ihiala, on to the deep riverine areas of Delta State, through Igbodo, back across the river Niger to other parts of Igboland with a service which spanned many decades. My mother stopped teaching to focus on their young children and other children who were for the most part brought to them to be straightened out. She was and is still fast with the whip, more like a drill Sergeant who would rip you up quickly with words and follow with a whipping. My siblings and I always tease her that she was lucky she did all that spanking in those days and not in today's setting especially in America and the civilized world, she would probably be sitting in jail somewhere. We remain very grateful though, for the strict discipline and the way she drilled fractions and grammar into us whether we liked it or not. My mother would with- hold lunches until the owners finished every chore or bookwork she assigned to them and if anybody tried to play tough, she would give the food away to the bunch of " Oliver Twists" who would gladly grab it and devour it. When one of my brothers had too much trouble with long division and fractions, she kept him home from school until he learned his fractions and long division and today he is in a profession where he works with numbers on a daily basis.

While she worked the home front, my father worked as the Headmaster and Agricultural officer for the church districts they served. In addition to their work, they assisted the church Pastor and his wife in their duties. This meant that the life of the family rotated around church, school and farm and life was always busy and it was always all hands on deck. Everything was every body's business. Everybody looked out for each other despite the fights and sibling rivalry. Everybody was in every body's business. For my parents, the name of the game was team work and they worked very hard together, complementing each other so well that people sometimes termed it weakness on my father's part because he and my mother echo each other and discuss everything and know where each other is and what they are doing at any given time. The trust and openness is simply complete. The openness was extended to the children. Everybody got the respect they deserved, male or female. Being around such calmness and loyalty for so long resulted in people taking it that life goes like that around everybody else, resulting in some rude and hard life lessons. From my observation, my parent's success is from a combination of total openess and trust which built their unspoken love over the years.

Being humans, they each have their faults but they manage to learn how to get around those faults. My father is very laid back. He does not allow things to bother him and my mother takes it as being non chalant about things. When I was younger, I would worry when my father would ask us to get a whip for our mother so she would spank him. I later learned that it was his way of telling her to be quiet after she had talked and whined for too long about something he did or did not do. Even to this day when she goes on and on, he would simply say------" bia j'enu kwatalu nne unu itali, k'opia m." That kind of wraps it up for her. Asking for a spanking was his way of saying he was wrong and he was sorry. Then she would change the subject.

On her part, her carelessness gets to my father sometimes. She leaves things around, losing them and then would turn everything upside down searching. He would stay out of the searching and just mind his business because he may end up being blamed when something else is missing from the pile made from the previous search. Each time I go home, I help my mother straighten her room, but before I leave it would be like a beehive again and she functions very well in there, actually I think she functions better that way.She is not dirty or anything like that. She just likes having her clothes, shoes, headties, handbags, books and everything else on the bed, table and chairs in her room. She would actually plead to a helper to leave things where they are because she knows where everything is. It is always a search for the record books of the various women's meetings she serves as secretary and for some other documents she keeps for them. In a hurry to find these things, she would dump the suitcases and drawers in her room on her bed for a quicker search. My father would look in there, scratch his head and let her be until she was done searching and straightening things up. His room, adjacent to hers is the exact opposite with everything set up just like his days as a teacher, his office was always orderly.

In old age, they seem to be depending on each other's strength more than ever. She is stronger physically now and he relies a lot more on her and she takes care of him very well. He helps as much as he can both in and outside the house. In the mornings, he would get his exercise by going out and around the compound to gather yellow cassava leaves and other leaves to feed the goats and then give them water. The activity helps keep him physically fit for his age. While he is doing this morning chore, she makes him breakfast. He is still stronger emotionally, still not letting anything bother him or interfer with his sleep. I have never heard this two tell each other----" I love you." but each time I am around them, I hear it in every move they make. They don't even think about it but it's all there and I just watch in awe. I always remember the promise-----till death do us part--- and I pray that the good Lord will watch over and hold whichever of them is left behind until the end of the journey. That God will be that Somebody to lean on.