Would You Please Close My Eyes?: The Incredible Story of the Fate We Share, the Gift Within, and Why You Need to Be Here

By Dr. Ohene Aku Kwapong

When a man has done what he considers his duty to his people and country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is why I will sleep for eternity. Nelson Mandela

Words of a man whose story is worthy of his seat in life. There is a secret in these words that is etched deep in our fabric, but remains to be awakened in a gift exclusive to us. Your gift will never be until the stories of your life are stories of people. The risk to the gift is an obsession with the inanimate luxuries and ideas exclusive of people.

I found it because my angel chanced upon me when I was dying. He was here because I am here. He was different, but differences have nothing to do with ones seat but rather providences purpose for us. Like him, I had no choice in my lifes package. We had a lifetimes opportunity to share time and space. What we do with such opportunities ultimately reveals our gift and a contentment that closes ones eyes for eternity.

This is the story one little boy, who shares your fate, discovered. He is here because you are here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490823676

Dr. Ohene Aku Kwapong

Ohene Aku Kwapong was born in Elmina, a West African village famous for its ties to transatlantic slave trade. He had dreams just like every child, and faced challenges that could have ended those dreams but for what he saw in people. From the roads of Elmina to the Ivy League schools of America, through the corridors of corporate America, it is the stories of people that have come to define his journey. He is here because you are here.

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Copyright © 2014 Dr. Ohene Aku Kwapong.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-2368-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2369-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2367-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014901159

WestBow Press rev. date: 2/14/2014

CONTENTS

Introduction

A Seat On The Train

The Reason For The Journey

The Greatest Gift Ever Given

Not Without Faith

The Faith I Speak Of

Of Doubt

A Promise To Keep

Of Desire And The Will

Not Without Possibility

Blessed Be The Blind

This is dedicated to the memory of the many children who wake up each day wondering whether they will ever have a life at chance and to the memory of the many that, because of the selfishness and recklessness of other adults, never complete the journey called life.

You deserve to be here.

…and to my parents Godfried Osae & Regina Apparteim for giving me a beginning.

~ OAK

INTRODUCTION

Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured

My name is Sisi Aku and those are the words of Homer that fill me with great satisfaction and extreme content each day I am reminded of my father. He, together with my mother, gave me a beginning; a beginning without which I would never have known the miracles that are possible in this life. He used to call me Okyerefo Aku. I never understood and appreciated the magnitude of what it meant till later on in adulthood when I had to go back to the village to bury my father. There I was told my parents named me after the first man in the village ever to use corrugated iron roofing on his house, somewhat of a visionary I guess. I am not sure if that had anything to do with my love for the enterprising. But as we sat down the days after, I found out Okyerefo meant one who starts a community and I was named after him indeed.

I have been blessed with many miracles on this journey – the ability to laugh, the possibility of falling in love, the tragedy of tears, and the sheer freedom to make mistakes – as a mere mortal in the midst of many unknowns. What lies ahead for you and me, neither of us knows. However, we are here and there is going to be an end to our stories.

As I think about my father, my biggest frustration is the helplessness I felt the day I stood next to his grave as his casket was lowered into the ground. We had always come home together each time we went out to a place together. However, for the first time in my life, I had to leave him behind, exposed to the harsh realities of the elements from which we were formed. I am here because he was here.

I stay on this journey of life for a reason. That reason is the story I want to share with you. The grief, the struggles, and the work of my father to live out his reason for being the best he could is what gives me the drive to live out my own story. Even though my life stands insignificant in the grand design of providence, whose mind I can never understand, it is the sheer mortality I share with others like you that have left me room to experience the miracles of life. It is the belief that my story on this journey is told by my own steps that will ultimately close my eyes when I take my last breath on this journey. Mine is a story of faith, a story of discovering my fate that I share with you, but one that makes it all worth it because it is the destiny we share. You and I are here.

A SEAT ON THE TRAIN

My name is Sisi Aku and this is my seat. My seat is all about people. That is the secret my life has revealed to me. People are fascinating to me and incredibly amazing. They could be refreshingly simple to admire and yet difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, people - each one of us - do die and our stories end. That is the life you and I share at this moment. It has been a journey for me and while I know where I have been, I am not certain where I am heading or how the story will end.

While most births occur in the ninth month of pregnancy, I do not understand why it took thirteen months for me to come out of my mother’s womb. My mother had fallen very sick after the tenth month and had been to the doctor’s several times, but could never go into labor. Having lost seven of her own brothers, her family had become less trusting of modern medicine and decided to consult instead with an herbalist in the port city of Elmina, an old transatlantic slave trade stop on the West Coast of Africa. Seven hens close to laying eggs were what the family was asked to purchase. According to the herbalist, each hen was likely to die at the time of laying eggs. After the seventh hen dies, he predicted my mum would have the child. Over a period of about two weeks all the hens died except for one which the family thought did not have an egg. On a Sunday morning, my mother went into labor and delivered me at home. That same morning they found the last hen had died and had indeed laid the last egg. That difficult delivery was followed by a period of convulsive attacks that will not end till about a year later. For a person from the Fanti tribe in Ghana, a tribal mark on the cheek is not a sign of tribal identification, but a mark of the person being treated for convulsions. In my case, my mother would not allow anyone to put a cut on my face. So the cut was placed on my scalp and medicinal herbs administered to treat the convulsions.

I asked my mother if she believed I would not have made it had her family not done what the herbalist asked them to do. She answered with a couple of questions; "Why did a prophet in the Bible asked the people of Israel to walk seven times around the walls of Jericho before they could destroy it? Why did a man called Jesus spit in dirt and rubbed it in a blind man’s eyes for him to see?" It seems fate will have it so and hence that is how it must be. I personally do not understand why I had to go through this entire ordeal just to be here. Even more perplexing is why am I here and why are you here? For me, the search for answers to that question was chanced upon on one afternoon in secondary school.

On that fateful afternoon, in the summer of my last year in secondary school, I stood in the middle of the room for about ten minutes, starring at the mirror. As my fingers felt the mark on my scalp, I knew providence was reminding me that I had been lucky. From the childhood convulsions, the battle with German measles, several bouts with bilharzia and episodes of malaria with my violent allergic reactions to quinone, I stood in front of the mirror lucky indeed. Go ahead, touch your face, feel the contours of your face, I thought to myself. Tears have flowed down this face many times this day and will probably overwhelm it days to come. There are indeed going to be ridges and wrinkles years to come that would undoubtedly tell a story, a story that would only belong to me and no one else. But on this day, it is the gaping hole on my forehead that had captured my attention. I am