Letter to my lad - Simon Mtsuki
Just as my grandfather wanted the best for my father, just as my father wanted me to
learn things the hard way, so too do I want to you to grow up to be the best that you can
be, in the hope that your best will be better than my greatest.
I want you to grow up to be big, strong and healthy. I want you to run the fields their
lengths and breadths, I want you to hit sixes and score tries, to run home runs and shapa
shibobo's.
I want you to respect your elders and earn admiration from those of a lesser age.
I hope you will study the history of our dark history as black people, so that you can have
full appreciation of what you currently have, the price has already been paid.
I hope you will meet people of a totally different view as you, that you will borrow from
the knowledge of kings and suckle from the intelligence of slaves and those on the street.
I hope you will learn to love and acknowledge this wisdom no matter how unappealing or
distasteful the deliverer, for you will find that the greatest truths and education will come
from the "University of Life‟ in the simplest of moments.
I hope you will learn to read great pieces of literature, from Gandhi to Martin Luther
King, from Malcolm X to Steve Biko, from Mandela to Mbeki, from Ame Cesaire to
Aristotle. Take on the voyage of discovery starting from the beginning, that place
between Tigris and Euphrates where the forbidden fruit was eaten out of season, page
through to Egypt where a slave nation crossed the red sea and walked 40 years into their
freedom in the promised land.
Watch as the greatest Kings of Israel nearly sold his inheritance for a bowl of soup, when
he slept with a married a woman while he was supposed to be at war. You will learn from
this the art of being at the right place at the right time, with the right people…an art that
so many people have failed to see, has a great effect on doing the right thing.
I hope you will enquire about the Prince of Peace, The Son of the Great I Am. The one
who sacrificed his seat next to the right hand of the Almighty to walk amongst those less
than he, he walked with us and talked to us, he healed some of us from deadly diseases
and hollow sins. We turned from him and sold him to his enemies for thirty pieces of
silver, and some of us denied him more than twice…yet he still found it in his heart to
shed his blood, so that we could gain his faith and deny him no more.
Son, I hope you will understand that he who finds a wife does not a find a good thing but
finds a great thing. I hope that in the years of your youth you will become wise enough to
know that a woman is not her hair more than she is what she knows. She is not her nails,
nor her body, she is neither her eyes nor her figure eight body, and she is not her sweet
lips or her thighs. I am yet to find out what a real woman is but I have saved you the
trouble by eliminating the wrong answers from the multiple choice of love, by telling
what she is not. If you select your love using the exterior as a guide you will find yourself
in a sour pool of milk and a bitter bottle of what was meant to be sweet. If you are after
the outer beauty, you will most certainly find it but you may find yourself with the most
beautiful but ugliest of women, with a curvaceous but most foolish of ladies.
Son, when the forces of greatness and good, when the forces of heaven want to build you
they put you in a relationship, and when satan wants to kill you he puts you into a
relationship…so you have doors of relationships which when opened can lead you into
your rightful place as king of the world, or the place which evil has predestined for you as
a slave of the world. I hope you will find HER, I hope she will have the intelligence to know that she has been
found. I hope she will be the opposite of what I have earlier mentioned…I hope she will
be the bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh.
At times in relationships you can be logically/intellectually right but "relationally‟ wrong.
At times, the benefit of coming out of an argument as a victorious slayer is far less than
the benefit of coming out defeated but with a strengthened relationship in hand. The point
of a disagreement is not to disagree even further, but a glorious opportunity to find
agreement. In all your of words let it not be to restore a certain order, but to build an
order that may have not been there. What is the use of coming victorious, but with
nothing to show for it? I would rather be a loser that wins, than a winner that loses.
Son, I pray that you will learn to walk with great men, friends that will lead you to good,
acquaintances that will point you to a bright future of fulfilled purpose. Men that will
sharpen and challenge you, that will steer and guide you. Men that will encourage you
when you are out, and pick you up when you are down. Friends that will not be jealous of
your success but compliment your achievement, as I know you will do likewise.
Men that will lead you to the living waters and away from the waters of the South
African Breweries. I hope you are never torn between choosing your friends approval
between the approvals of heaven, or stuck between the authorization of men and the
authorization of your creator. If you ever find yourself in such an unfortunate position, do
not be a coward like your father, dear to stand against the furious disapproval of man to
gain the sweet smelling scent of the smile of God.
Son if you are lucky to see the morning, make certain that you work hard, and if you‟re
lucky to see your tomorrow, the tomorrow after that and the tomorrow after that…Work
hard, and harder and harder. Promise me that that you will take pride in a days work,
guarantee that you will earn every million in the Bank and every rand in your wallet. Do
not be corrupted into mediocre leadership and avoid Back-Door entrances to
success…but let your hard work and determination be the equivalent of your dreams and
let your dreams be identical to the capacity that God has invested in you.
Son I never had a Father at home, I spent days wondering what it felt like to have my
Father spin me around till I fell asleep, and then carry me up the stairs to my bed.
I yearned for him to come home, sit on the couch and read the newspaper even if he did
not say a word his presence would have consoled me. My heart has wept for tough love
and stern care, yet even though I got down on my knees every night without fail. Pleading
with the One Above, he came home not once when I was a child…he showed his face
more frequently when I was older.
I pray that even if you do not appreciate me; appreciate these words, each and every one
of them…even the spaces of silence between them. Take them and carry them in your
heart, don‟t throw them away…you can hate me for things I may have said and reject me
for things I may have done but keep these words…keep them in winter, keep them in
summer, keep them whether you walk bear foot or driving a hummer. Keep them when
you fail and when you succeed, keep them and make certain to pass them onto your own
seed.
You do not need to make those mistakes for I have already made them for you, what I
need you to do is to go ahead and conquer those wars that I have failed, sail those seas I
haven‟t sailed, and conquer those mountains that were to high for my reach.
Be slow to get angry but quick to forgive, don‟t let the moon go down and the sun rise
with the poison of anger in your heart. Understand that you can be as mad as a dog, you
can swear and curse the fates, but at the end of it all you have to let it go. Make sure that
as the sun comes up you will let it sweep your heart with the broom of forgiveness, and
allow the day to compensate you with new blessings every morning.
I hope that in everything else, My Seed, you will follow your heart, that you will follow
your purpose. I know that at times you may fall, but find the courage to get up. I know
that at times you will be hurt, your heart will be bludgeoned by the unfairness of people
and life…but it‟s fine…amidst all of this I hope you will be man enough to shed a few
tears, and man enough to dust yourself (in front of those who have celebrated your fall)
and try again.
I hope that you will live a life that you are proud of…a life that will make my chest filled
with satisfaction, and your mother screaming, “that‟s my son”…I hope that you will do
all of this, but if (after having read this) you find that you haven‟t, find an even greater
courage…the courage to start again
The World is yours my Son, Take it Acre by Acre.