Longevity is always a proof of efficiency and true quality. Anything that lacks substance shouldn’t stick around for too long, and they usually don’t. Good music from the 50s, though not as frequently aired, still has old listeners reliving the good old days. We remember great movies due to how epical they are in comparison with modern day films.
If there is anything that proves impactful, chances are excellent that they will also stand the test of time.
Humans are like that too. Some persons live longer than their biological years, which is attributable to their bearing on the sand of time.
Impact is the one true value of length of time, otherwise, it would only be an inconsequential waste of space.
A 4000-year-old network of ceramic water pipes was unearthed at an archaeological site of Pingliangtai, China. And guess what? They still work.
This water drainage system provides insights into early urban planning and social organization in ancient China. It goes to show how quality can rise above aesthetics in every setting. Quality renders a substance timeless.
When true quality is topmost of considerations in the process of any molding or creation, there would be little or no need for fixing.
Good plumbers never get a call back.
My father, Engr. George Kayode Fakunle, mounted up the seventh floor this month. It’s an incredible achievement, granted by grace and mercy, but there is still an underlying theme about this. A significant point that I’m aiming to get across.
Daddy George has been around for such a long time — and there are a couple of older ones around too — but for him, it’ll appear like an irredeemable error to not particularly appreciate his life at this remarkable stage. His existence so far is not one that can just slip right off our backs.
As I grew older myself, I watched him forge lives with little words. Most of his birthdays in those years went without mention, as he was not one to gas up his special days. They went under the radar.
It would come as a bit of surprise to some people that Daddy George has been around this long because there were no fireworks twenty years ago for his golden jubilee, and neither was any trumpet blown ten years later for his 60th. Like the underground pipe in China, he just kept quietly yet effectively supplying grace and love through the years.
Together with Mother, he has laid down an example for us, and indeed for everyone. It’s been 70 years of a life of impact that’s sure to outlive him. 70 years of unparalleled wisdom. 70 years of unwavering work ethic. 70 years of shaping lives. 70 years of mirroring what a good husband and father should look like.
Looking back, we see now that you’ve always been more than just a father — you’ve been a mentor, a guide, and a source of unbending support.
Whether it was watching you turn up for work daily, bringing in apprentices who would later become sons, or watching you wake the whole house every morning for morning devotion, or watching you cast your net for more academic knowledge in your 60s, or witnessing how you’ll wake up every midnight to pray alone and sing praises, sometimes out in the cold when your sleep should be deepest, asking nothing for yourself in prayers but every prayer request laced with desires for your children, or laying principles for yourself and sticking to it without a flinch, you taught us valuable lessons that we carry with us every day.
You have a quiet strength. Pedantic with your approach to living. Like world class defensive midfielders in football, their roles are not the most lustrous, and usually don’t get as much encomium as the strikers that put the ball in the back of the net, however, they are the cogs that gets the entire system of a formation running smoothly.
As you celebrate this special milestone, I want you to know how deeply cherished and appreciated you are, and that you will always be. You have touched so many lives and we cannot be more grateful to be your children.
Our lives as your products give credence to the quality of the impact you make, and foretell how lasting it will be. Your words are few but apropos — ever relevant in time.
We share commonalities in more ways than visages; in character, resilience, and most importantly, Godliness. While I know that Mummy has set the bar of generosity to un-scalable heights, yours is worth alluding to as well.
As we prepare to exhibit a simulation of our appreciation for your life so far, you should know that it’s nothing compared to how much we hold in high esteem what you mean to us.
You are a blessing of a father. We can’t ask for more.
I hope your road to 71 is laced with gold, laughter, celebration, and with the knowledge that you are surrounded by people who truly love and admire you.
Here’s to an amazing year, father; and like the 4000-year-old functioning underground pipes in China, we know with a warrior’s confidence that what you have laid down, and will still lay down, will be unearthed with deep appreciation to generations unborn.
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