By Gabriel Oguda
Louis Otieno reminds us of two important things.
1. Friends are not family, you get to choose them and you have to do a better job with your choices of friends. Workmates aren’t automatically your friends. Never assume your drinking buddies are your friends, even your dog is more loyal a friend than the guys you analyse betting odds and fantasize the jackpot with. You’d rather puff marijuana in your dark room communing with Jah Rastafari alone, than send a group invite to a shisha puff-out with people who shall desert you when the chips are down. It is better to be alone, than to be in plastic company.
2. Family will always remain your last line of defense. Whatever you do, however you do, always be true to your family. They are the ones you shall run to when the world is inhospitable and your friends have deserted you. And if you can’t stay true to your family, for reasons best known to yourself, always be in good terms with your mother.
Never, ever, disrespect your mother. Mothers will wash you up in your birth suit when the ravages of disease have wasted your flesh, your bones too weak to carry your body, and when everyone around you can’t wait to see you go. Mothers will never leave you. Even when all faith is gone and your world is in tatters, mothers will keep fighting for you until there is no fight left to fight. Mothers are godsend.
Mothers are forever.
