Remembering Da

Dida! Since you passed I have played over and over in my mind all that you been to us and to me. Scenes of yesteryear come and go as I analyse them again and again. First, our childhood days with you and then our adult lives.

You and Ma tried to cultivate in us virtues of the highest order. Your gentle ways of punishment after doing something wrong (facing the corner for several hours in your study while you worked) always ended repeatedly with these stern words of reprimand – “ A pee gya we!” meaning – this is not done.

I remember when you drove home one day with a sticker on the car (something I couldn’t remember you ever had). When I got close and read the words, I wasn’t surprised at all. I remember remarking to Katey or someone that “this sounds like something Poppy wrote himself” because it went like this – IF IT MUST BE DONE, IT MUST BE DONE WELL! In fact, I was convinced that you only chose DONEWELL Insurance because of their slogan and nothing else. That was what you believed.

You believed in modesty, putting others before oneself, family, hospitality, and prayer. Yes, even the very long ones that left me dozing off before the final Amen came when I was a child. You made sure that almost every visit and each family gathering ended with prayer, singing and some words of encouragement from the scriptures before we parted. I still treasure the different things you taught me – on table manners, how to dress appropriately in winter, good neighbourliness, fetching water in a bucket quietly, ironing, good working relations, strategies for marking scripts,… the list goes on.

You and Ma always opened our home to everyone. You made sure that the visiting scholars and your colleagues who passed through Ghana for a couple of days would come home for a meal before leaving. On countless occasions Ma and us girls would spend the whole day preparing all kinds of dishes just to host them for an hour or so!

Da, you loved to teach and you took the opportunity to do that with great detail and patience. You would patiently teach and remind us over and over again how to pronounce our Dangme names correctly with the right tone and nasal sound.  I will never forget way back in class six (6) when my teacher asked me, “Do you know the meaning of your name?”  But I didn’t know, so he told me to go and ask my father, which I did. You wrote a whole page full explaining the origin of the name, asked me to read it and then give it to my teacher. At that age I couldn’t bother myself with the details. The only thing that stuck with me was the meaning – Death is a liar.

Indeed Dida, Death is a liar.

For where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Cor 15: 55 & 57).

I will miss you but I know that you are taking your long deserved rest.

We give thanks to God and celebrate your life. We know that the excellent things we have learnt from you will live on in us and in our children’s children.

To God be the glory!