Dear future generations and unborn children, I hope all is well with you. It has been long since I last sent you the third of this letter. I have not been writing to you, not because I’m tired of writing. We are home and life is very hard here. I am struggling daily to survive but it is not working out well and I’m greatly worried not only for myself, but you are also part of my worry.
I am a charcoal maker and that is how I survive but I don’t see any light ahead due to the ravaging virus that needs people to remain indoors or unless when you are prepared to dig your own grave that is when you will disobey the orders given by the concerned people but little ones, I also need to live amidst this seemingly never-ending situation. I need food and water to drink, and those requirements will not get me in my house.
I had to move all day long and fight really hard to make sure I see another day. We live by luck here because tomorrow is always uncertain. We are living in the age of uncertainties. Today we are here and tomorrow we won’t. That is the problem with our world. When you are lucky later and get a chance of being born, don’t cry when you are given a heavy cross to carry.
Life is not easy here and that is the first thing you should take note of if you really want to leave your legacy behind. You are just here to do an assignment and you go back to present your work to your creator. You will be given a lot of problems to solve and thousands of battles to win. If you succumb to these obstacles, as they will surely happen. I beg you in the name of the living God not to sit down and cry. You just have to remain strong and hide your tears. That is the only way to win these battles of life. It does not need you to easily give up. Life will bring you down to your knees and reduce you to nothing, but you have to stand tall even when nobody is standing with you.
You might wonder why I’m a charcoal maker at my age when am still young and fresh. Well, this is not an easy world. I did this to show you that you have to do all it takes to survive in this unfair world. I don’t want you to rely on others not even your parents, cousins, uncles or aunts. Some people are weak for others to rely on while others will just let you down only for you to regret the times you have wasted.
Nothing comes on a silver platter and that is a sad reality. I am a graduate, yes, I have my senior four certificate, but I realize that it is not enough to secure for me a decent job, so I had to keep climbing the ladders but, in the process, I also need to survive and buy something for myself and support my little siblings. I don’t have to expect my parents, uncles, aunts or anybody to do all these for me.
I need to grab life by the horns which will never be easy and do all I can within my ability to make sure that I’m responsible even if it means cleaning someone’s compound or wash people’s cars only to get money to support my siblings and myself. That is why I’m a charcoal maker little ones.
There is no need to fear. I want you not to be a timid youth when you come here. You should not fear doing odd jobs. The youth of today have been raised on a poor belief that dirty jobs are not for young people; they are for those who are desperate.
Such kinds of people are here and you will meet them one day. Little ones, if you come across these people, run as fast your legs could carry you. There is no dirty job here. The only dirty job is stealing and relying on others. You need to make up your minds and set yourself different from the rest of us.
You have no time. You just have an illusion of time. There will come a time when your strong muscles will be powerless. The breasts will fall, beauty will fade, wrinkles will take over your faces and your teeth will fall off and once you were a lazy youth, you will have tears to wipe for eternity.
We don’t want you to cry and that is why I take part of my time to give you a glimpse of the world you are about to make your temporary home. The day you will be born, you will begin to cry. It is not well known why every child has to first cry when they are born but I think that weeping could be a sign that you have entered a painful world.
You will then go through pains, struggles and rejections until you go back to your creator. But what pays is how you leave your world. There are some people who have left the world in pieces not in peace. I want you to leave your world in peace for the greater good of the following generations. What worries me now is that you are about to come into the world when it is at its testing times in history. Many shocking things happen here daily. There are many deaths than births and this will make it hard for you to win a place in this planet.
There is a disease threatening lives here. It all started from a city called Wuhan in China and it has affected more than one million people worldwide and killed almost 80,000 since it outbreak early this year. The world is in great shock and the fears send shocking waves everywhere. We are completely lost on what to do. Children are out of school and it is not known whether they will go back to school and there is no food to eat, hunger is preparing to attack. If we fail to bring you here in the later days, just know that the world is sick and tired of us but we will try within our capacity to make sure you experience this life, perhaps you could be the generation that will bring lasting change in our patchy world.