By Olaleye Boluwatife Ezekiel
DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR GREATEST TEST IS WHEN YOU ARE ABLE TO BLESS
SOMEONE ELSE WHILE YOU ARE BATTLING YOUR OWN STORM?
SEE, IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE BETTER, THEN YOU ARE LIVING YOURS WRONG
And so it happened...
"Hey! Wait, I need your help", he
shouted as he ran towards the moving yellow bus carrying not more than 3
passengers.
"Oga mi(meaning my boss), please lend me
your vehicle's jack. One of my back tyres got burst while trying to pass
through that Stony path and I need to change it"
The driver hissed and said,"as you can
see, I have my business to attend to so, I am sorry but I won't be able to give
you because I would be as stranded as you if my tyres should mess up and I
don't want that for myself"
"Common, your tyres look good and
besides, you will soon get off this bad side of the road and be on the smooth
one which you can see just ahead."
"My passengers are waiting on me, they
have got places to go to, I am pretty sure they are extremely mad at me now.
Please help me, lend me and I will return it to you as soon as I get to the
garage, I promise", he continued.
The driver gave him a look of mockery and
asked,"is it my fault that you are so poor and foolish not to have an
extra tyre and have a jack just in case of situations like these?" The
other driver felt ashamed as he watched the man drove his almost-passenger-less bus away.
I couldn't help it but shake my head in pity
of the man and in disbelief at how heartless and wicked man could be to their
fellows. However, keep calm, this is where it gets painfully interesting and it
is where I got the inspiration to write this piece.
I was on my way to school on a very cold and
wet Tuesday. However, this time, I wasn't trekking but I happened to have
boarded the bus of the same driver that suffered a terrible humiliation while
pleading for people to help him with his tyre that got burst but, there was
something confusing, it wasn't the same bus. On realizing this, I started
praying for a safe, uninterrupted journey because I had a test to write that
morning but something happened.
After travelling over fifteen minutes, I
sighted a bus struggling to move out from a pool of dirty waters that had
accumulated in a spot because of the heavy downpour which happened overnight.
As we moved closer, I kept wondering and said to myself, "I have seen this
bus before but where?". I recognised the back of the bus perfectly, it had
a sticker with the image of Nigerian Musician, Small Doctor on it and below the
image was a caption which spelt "STREET AMBASSADOR" but I couldn't
just remember where.
All of a sudden I heard the driver handling
the wheels burst into a loud, heavy laughter and shouted ,"Iwo oloshi
yi ti e ni, Iwo ni o n ba Omi idoti ja pelu Moto ofo re", he said in a
Nigerian language, Yoruba, which means "so it is you this unfortunate man
again, you are the one fighting the dirty water with your damn vehicle".
On hearing, the picture became clearer to me,
I suddenly remembered where I saw the bus from and the driver of the bus. I
left my mouth wide open when I realized that the bus had got stuck exactly at
the same place where my bus' driver tyres got burst. I knew, at that moment,
that it was God at work, no doubt because it was something not humanly possible,
a shocking but great coincidence
I watched on as the other driver began to beg
our bus' driver to help him. It seems like he realized that our bus was more
populated with men and few women unlike his own passengers but no one was ready
to alight from the bus, dip their legs into the deep dirty water to help push
the other bus out of the water that early morning, it was as if their hearts
were divinely made Stony, their conscience, dead and me? I couldn't obviously
step on the heads of my elders all in the name of playing the Good Samaritan
for a man whom I knew didn't deserve it.
"Olorun mu e Loni, sebi nijosi, Moni ki
o ranmilowo, o sebi n pe Iwo nikan lo ni gbogbo aye, o tu fi mi see yeye, o bu
mi nitori pe mo bere jacki lowo e, o wa n bemi nisinyi pe ki ba e ti Moto re.
Sebi nijosi, Taya temi lo baje, ti e tu buru ju temi lo, Moto tie ti daku sinu
Omi, sotan e bayi sugbon emi o le wonu Omi idoti yi lati ba e ti Moto kankan,
ibi to ma wa titi niyi ti o si ni ri eni to ma ran e lowo", he said in Yoruba
again which means "God has finally caught up with you today. Some few days
back, I was desperately needed help and I asked you to help me but you acted as
if the whole world belonged to you, you mocked me, you even insulted me all
because I asked you for your jack, now you are begging me to help push out your
vehicle. At least, then, it was my tyres that burst, yours is even worse than
mine, your bus has powered off while in a deep dirty water. Look at you, I
can't step into this dirty water to come push any bus whatsoever. This is where
you will remain and you won't see anyone to help you" and he drove away in
laughter.
I watched as the few passengers, who were left with no choice, began to
alight from the bus and demand for half of the money they had initially paid
since the man couldn't get them to their various destinations.
Hope you enjoyed the short true story and you learnt a thing or two from
it?
Seriously, you don’t need a reason to help
others if you actually want to and never look down on people except you are
willing to help them up.
It is always good to help people in their
time of need even when they don't ask for it. There are times you would realize
that a person desperately needs something but he is probably not in the
position to ask, It costs you nothing to just help, help! You don't have to
remain in your pride waiting for such person to come to you on his kneels
begging you before you help. For crying out loud, why not do it if it is in
your capacity and plant a good seed in the life of that person. He will help
you one day except if he is an ingrate but the beauty of it all is to help!
Help! Help! It goes a long positive way in the life of the beneficiaries.
However, it must be noted that what my bus' driver did to his fellow
wasn't good enough even if it seems so but we will be taken this same story
from another perspective in our next publication.
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