ARE YOU LIKE STELLA? --by Nickz

(Image source: www.nubianplanet.com)

Stella is very sad; she’s been that way for months. Last night, she soaked her pillow again with tears when she checked her result online and discovered she didn’t reach the cutoff point for Law. She is intelligent and had graduated as the best student from her secondary school but things have not been going well the past two years. The first time, she made it in JAMB and failed the post UME. This year, she has failed to meet expectation again. She has grown depressed and wouldn’t eat even after cooking; her room has become her solace and her bed, her cradle.

She cannot bear the shame of appearing in public; her choir role in church has been neglected. Surely, they will say, “Was she not the brightest?”, “With all her shagara and fancy English, she thought she was better than us that can’t afford big school.”  They’d secretly ridicule her. In spite her mother’s consolation and support, she still feels like a failure in life.

Why can’t things go well for me? Haven’t I laboured enough? Why’s my case worse than others’? Why can’t I make it like Ebuka, my classmate? Why can’t I be fortunate like Theresa my mate, who is now in her second year of study in Wyoming? These thoughts plagued her day and night and she had no rest of mind. Her plan was to finish Law School at 21, start practicing very early in life, build a successful career, be a voice for the oppressed, just like one of her role models, Barr. Mrs. Abidemi. The young and intellectual lady lawyer inspires her in every professional sense. Now she’s grown to 18, still struggling for admission. If only she has the grace of her mother who had finished school at a tender age, started working and got married at 24, then she wouldn’t have any cause to weep. Her plans to start a family early would be actualized and she would be a young professional with a happy home; the kind of home Omotola Kennedy, the renowned gospel artiste has. She could be a model to the next generation. All the successful people on her list pop up in her mind and she feels like a complete failure. She is hungry, angry, despaired and mortified.

But there are so many secrets not revealed to her. She has misconstrued actuality. She has a single mother who is caring and supportive but she’s blind to that. She has the brain and gift to try again but she lets depression and self comparison demolish her ego. She withdraws from services to the Supreme Being, fearing what people will say. She forgets the part in the good book that says all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. She forgets the part that says, concerning the work of my hands, command ye me. She sinks into hopelessness. She wishes to be like others. She feels all that glitter is gold. She wants to make it like Ebuka but she doesn’t see behind the curtain how much his father had paid the registrar of his school to secure his son’s admission. She longs to study abroad like Theresa but it’s concealed from her that Theresa did not just travel for her studies but to also have adequate medical attention to battle her sickle cell anemia while schooling and she’s the only hope of her parents. Stella does not know this. She does not know that her own mother had lost her first pregnancy due to the stress of the bank job and loneliness when she got married early. Her husband, Stella’s father, was a field soldier and moved about often. He was not even present when she had the miscarriage, neither was he around when Stella was birthed. He was not around enough to comfort the hardworking woman and he did not live long enough to see her daughter’s first birthday. Stella only knows her mother is a strong and capable mother. She does not know the vulnerable widow still sobs at night. She doesn’t know she would have loved to feel the love of a husband and the cry of a new baby, she only sees her radiance and confidence.

She wants to be like Barr. Mrs. Abidemi because she is successful, unknown to her that the successful lady grew up an orphan, passed through abuses and several ugly things people should never hear, just to be where she is today. She craves for the ideal family of Omotola Kennedy who inspires through her music. She loves the way her husband and two boys support her ministry. But she doesn’t know the interviews she watches live on air and that in the pages of Celebrity Magazine were more of social bluffs. She doesn’t know that the first son had been expelled from the University for possessing cocaine and the parents are trying to keep it out of news. She doesn’t know that the husband sleeps outside marriage because he feels Omotola is giving more time to her music career. She doesn’t know. It doesn’t occur to her that the youths in her church that gossip her are jealous they can’t reach her so all they can do is gossip. She cannot summon strength to face life. She feels her load is the heaviest. She lives in regret and depression. She cannot withstand a little tremor. She feels an omelet can be made without breaking the eggshell, she sees the small thorns on the stem and not the red and beautiful rose flower petals. She sees the glass is half empty, instead of seeing it's half full.

I wish you could stop drowning in that situation that makes you perturbed. I wish you could see yourself as blessed and progressive. I wish you could stop envying others when you barely know their problems. I wish you could see how many people want to be where you are. I wish you could say thank you God for the good plans He has for you. I wish you have a beautiful week.

What’s your wish for us?