THIS TOO SHALL PASS
Tope: Hey! Dami see this girl hawking sweet in the middle of the road, oh gosh! She's even running to take her money on the express way. I remember when I was like this too. Dami: Oh yea! It was a bad time for us all, you looked so lean then, what am I saying, we all looked lean. It's a bad thing to leave a stage of plenty to penury. Time shall tell sis, this girl will leave this phase too and starts telling the story like ours. This phase too shall pass. Tope: Sure, it shall. I bless God today because no one could ever believed I hawked and had a skin infection but see now, all is good. God be praised. Let me take you back memory lane... In the big city of Ibadan, Oyo state Nigeria, there lived a family of six which comprises of four children and their parents. This family lived in peace and harmony with each other and other people, they were a family with good heart, which makes their children showcase these attributes to people around them. It's a great family. Mr Gold lost is job and everything turned upside down while Tope was in her second year in the university but she had to returned home because there was no money to pay for her school fees, her mother got her another school after staying at home for eight months! Tope's joy knew no bound even if she had never heard of that school before, it was a college of education but at least she was happy that she's leaving home but wished it was University like the one she left. Little money was required and immediately the tuition fees was paid. It was when Tope got to that school that she knew she was in semi -secondary because the college had only four buildings and the students won't be more than five hundred in total. At first she was unhappy about the school but later changed her mind that she's there for the certificate not the building. Three years spent there was full of multiple experiences for her; full of laughter, sleepless nights without food and days of eating unripened fruits, no food at all. In her second year, she went home for holiday but noticed there was nothing to fall back to at home, Dad didn't get another job, mum was just a cleaner at her office, although government worker but they are known as junior staffs, so there was little she could do. Tope started calling her friends in school to know if there's any work at their place that she could do, after few weeks a friend called her that there was a job in her neighboring state if she's interested. She jumped into the offer and carried her load to the other state. She got there to know she will have to hawk sweets made for cold and cough by the road side and inside traffic jam to make money, she was promised to receive a good money as salary which could even pay for her school fees and house rent in school, Tope was extremely happy until she started the trade. It was when she started that she knew there was terms and conditions attached with it and to reach that will be so hard. She tried her best throughout that month and made at least half of the promised salary and after collecting the salary she ran back to Ibadan where her parents lived. When she got home she told them about what happened to her over there; about the salary, the stress of staying under the sun and how rough and unkept she looked. Tope graduated and started working to help her younger ones. Timi, the second daughter too had finished secondary school and had started working with application for admission in the university which she later got after five years of staying at home and working everywhere including being a house keeper. Tope and Timi worked so hard in helping their family and their other siblings because Dami too has finished secondary school and await to go to school too. Timi finished schooling and met her dream man and they got married leaving her other siblings with her parents. Luck shines on Tope too and she was giving a job in Abuja the following week her sister Timi got married, so Dami and her brother Tobi was left with their parents. Tope was blessed in her new place of work and every burden was lifted, she sponsored Dami in school without stress and the family too were happy. Mrs Gold got promoted to a senior level civil servant and they have more than enough now, Mr Gold got contract jobs but not a full type of job that he was into before. Everything is going on well now, Dami has graduated from the University and was blessed with a good job immediately she passed out from school, they have Tobi alone in school now getting sponsorship from his three sisters. Tope came home for a program when she was on bike with Dami and they saw a girl hawking sweets and running after money that a customer threw at her, when Tope saw what happened it took her back to memory lane that almost made her cry in the public but her sister consoles her. When you see the family of Gold now you can't say they passed through all this. It will all pass, it's just a phase.