My grandma(paternal) has a principle and that's, "anyone you're privileged to help, do so wholeheartedly". I have the opportunity to live with her while growing up and her motto was "You're going to reap whatever you sew". She does tell me it won't be her joy to see any of her children suffer because of her mistakes or bad deeds, so she will try her best to be good always so that her children can reap the good.
While growing up, my junior secondary school was a few kilometres away from our home. It's just a thirty-minute walk, if I'm even playing along the way, and living with my grandma, no money for transport. I have to trek, to and fro, every day. Back then, I had many friends, unlike now, when I decided not to keep a large circle anymore. While trekking home every evening because we closed by 4pm, my friends would stop at my house to eat. My grandma already knew when we closed, so she would have prepared food and kept it for us. At that time, I used to get annoyed not because I am stingy but because she is too kind.
"What if these children eat and later complain of a stomach ache when they get to their homes, telling their parents they ate at my house, won't there be trouble?" This was the question I asked my grandma.
"Do good unto all men, that's the only way to live a fulfilled life. Just be good, don't think of what people will say and as for your friends, nothing will happen to them", she always replied.
"One good turn deserves another. Don't be stingy, always learn to share", she would say.
"I'm not stingy, I'm just trying to be on the safer side", that was always my response.
After my junior secondary school, I wanted to go further into senior secondary school but that was in another town away from my grandmother. When I got to school for admission, I was asked a few questions about my hometown and family. For me, my family name is my pride, I'm always eager to say it anywhere. I told the headteacher, who was conducting the interview for me, that this was the place where my parents didn't follow me.
The headteacher suddenly smiled and said, "Omo Mama Tinuoye(Madam Tinuoye's child)".
I looked at him in surprise wondering how he knew my grandmother.
"Your grandma is a good woman, I attended OBHS (my former school) some years back and despite staying in the boarding house, I do sneak out sometimes and she always welcomes us and feeds us well, knowing fully we don't eat to our satisfaction in school", the headteacher narrated.
It dawned on me that my grandma had been in the business of feeding school students from way back. Her goods didn't only speak for her children, but also for me, her grandchild.
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