The Uncommon Housewife

By Uboho Bassey

The author claims not to be a poet, yet she has reached out in a series of heartfelt and thought-provoking poems that takes us through her outlook to life, living, and the world in general.
The Uncommon Housewife expresses in the most simplistic of terms her experiences, opinions, and views about life, love, family, and society.
If you are reading this, congratulations! You are a victor. A survivor. You made it through several heartbreaks, strings of adversity, series of disappointments, a cocktail of delays and denials, and maybe a couple of failures and losses.
Life has happened to you and made you stronger and wiser than you ever thought you could be. In spite of it all, you persevered.
Let the collection of poems in this book The Uncommon Housewife accompany you on your reminiscences through life and refresh your perception of daily existence and its complexities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514405307

Uboho Bassey

The Author, Uboho Bassey is no longer a slave to those frightful fears of existence.. She has fought many wars alone, on a private battlefield strewn with pain. Unbroken, she walks confidently in the promises of God for her life, knowing and trusting that she was created to achieve divine purpose; and soaring over the limitations that once held her in bondage. She is not afraid to explore the unknown territories of the world. She is a survivor, focused and determined to redirect her life and rewrite her story. She believes that her writing creates a dialogue with people, giving meaning to emotions in contexts just like other mediums of art, music, painting, photography, sculpture, fiction or poetry. And she wants them to experience it, the rich feelings, the real language of life; expressed in our stories, in our passion and in our purpose. Her spirit is laid bare like an untameable fruitful delta, conscious daily of delivering promise. She writes to inspire others to embrace hope.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Uboho Bassey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/30/2015

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CONTENTS

Preface

Foreword

Acknowledgement

PART 1

AMETHYST SERIES

Uncommon

A Bridge And A Lemonade

Reflections

Fading Glory

My Strength

Perseverance

Echoes

Good Enough

Freedom Heights

Bring Back

Love or Judge

It’s Time

Tomorrow is Lived in Hope

Today

Do Not Despair

Evolve And Excel

Someday

Gates Of Liberty

The Future I Feared

For The Beloved

Finally free

Afresh

Musings

Happy

Tales of Life

Like the Phoenix

PART 2

EMERALD SERIES

Mother, Did I Ever Thank You?

Love Was Just A Word

Together

He Was No Ordinary Man

There Are Days

The Big House

My Parents

I Will Understand

The Price

Just Another Part

Uncommon Self

Recalcitrant Youth

Love Amiss

Back In Time

A Mother’s Love

She Is All Woman

This Woman

She Was But A Child

You Took Your Love Away

Only You

How Do I Tell You?

I Remember

In The Evening

Only But Once

Anything But

Before

PART 3

RUBY SERIES

Where The Years Went

The Place

Wake Me

Until Then

Mere Words

More Out Of Life

Beautiful Heart

Closest

No Demands

Hope For Tomorrow

The One

Mirage

Marked

I Mourn

Clad In Modesty

I Come With Forgiveness

Regret

Wasted

Crossroads

Lost Fear

Never Give Up

Unveil

Never Alone

Mr And Mrs

Allure

Better Than Before

PART 4

PERIDOT SERIES

Seated On Your Throne

In A Place

Restored

A Prayer

O! How Long

Here I Am In Worship

I Sit Here

A Moment

A Plea

That I Chant

Your Days

Used By God

Uphill

Loose The Colt

I Surrender All

Our Years

Anchored

All I Need

Hope Deferred

Hold My Hands

A Deprived Soul

Status Quo

The Butterfly

The Common Housewife

Finding My Way

Forgive Me Lord

PART 5

TOPAZ SERIES

The Masked One

You Do Not Know Me

Would You Rather

Who Knows?

The Nigerian Child

It Is That Time Again

The Tyrant

Boss Lover

Disquiet

Empty Nest

Somewhere Else

What Do I See?

Dare To Try

He Returns A Graduate

Love Ration

Miles Apart

More Than This

This Is It

Giving Up

Oh! Loneliness

The Paired Tenets

Take my Hands In Friendship

Remorse

Dirge Of Sorrow

In The Mirror

365 Days

Dedication

To my beloved children

who make my world most meaningful.

Preface

Hello Special One

I am very glad that my voice has led me to you. And before you continue, hurriedly confess that I am no poet and therefore lay no claims to any special skills. I am only excited that my work will find meaning and humanity be best served by inspiration.

This book is my resolve in choosing to play an active role in creating my own destiny. Everything may seem impossible at the beginning until it becomes inevitable. I warmly welcome you as we take a leisurely trip together through its pages. Please, come along with me.

In the depth of every human soul on earth is the search for meaning, purpose, relevance and value. At this point in the journey of your life, in the season of whatever trial or circumstance you may be experiencing, my mission is to reach out in love, in compassion, in encouragement and in friendship to you. Please accept this fact from me; you are not alone!

My solemn prayer is that within the pages of this book you will find courage, strength, comfort, perseverance and faith to face every challenge that life has thrown at you. Though you may feel beaten, overwhelmed, empty, broken and powerless to move on each day, do not yield nor succumb to the weakness of giving up. Your struggle is proof that you have not been conquered as you hunger for a higher level of attainment.

There may be various options open to your mind in despair. One of which is the thought of just curling up and dying. Believe me, it will not help. Why? There will be some days, the embers of the dreams and the visions of a better life will intrude into your soul with an insistent cry begging to be fanned into blazing fire of achievement.

How do I presume to know? Simply because I have been in my own dark season for many years. But gradually relieved of the weight of past anxieties and supported by a positive attitude, I find excitement and new freedom to shape my future. And if God has led me out of my valley to the mountain top surrounded with magnificent views, then He will surely guide you through all pain, misery, doubts, delays and fear.

An empowered individual is one who has been strengthened and enabled to accomplish what would ordinarily and naturally be impossible. Empowerment in this sense doesn’t come from society, friends or any other source; it comes from the Lord. To spend your allotted life living in fear, held back by dogma of bigots and never exploring your dreams; is cruel. It is the biggest disservice to God and humanity to lay waste the innate talents and gifts He deposited into you at creation. Don’t let anyone or anything quench the fire that God has set alight in you. You are not common! You are not ordinary! You are not inconsequential! You are not irrelevant!

Get ready for a life spent in pursuit of meaning and significance. Be open to that intangible feeling of accomplishment as you take necessary steps to make your dreams a reality. For somewhere along God’s plan is a partnership that will open up doors that have been closed in the past, with someone who is especially creative or influential that will give you the needed support and help clear up the uncertainties about your future.

It is my dearest wish that you become the best version of yourself that you can be. Only then will your soul find true contentment and you can be a blessing to humanity through family, friends, tribe and country. Let the love go round. Forget the betrayals. Ignore the fear. Look only to the author and finisher of your faith. He makes everything beautiful in His own season. God never fails.

May your crown be laced all round with favour.

Sincerely with Love

Uboho

Foreword

I feel highly honoured to do a foreword on this collection of poems, the content of which addresses problems confronting man in his quest to weather through the storms of life.

What range of emotions do you feel today?

We all agree to the reality that life is indeed very complex. The experiences of today become lessons of tomorrow as we grow in strength emotionally and psychologically. Let the collection of poems in this book The Uncommon Housewife accompany you on your reminiscences through life and refresh our perception of daily existence.

The intellectual depth of The Uncommon Housewife is a blend of the inner mind of the author coupled with her experiences that are probably borne out of contact with the vicissitudes of life. While teaching all and sundry the need for self-actualization and realization, the author emphasizes the need for the reader to live his life rather than living to the expectation of other people.

Fortunately, this writer knows that whatever daily problems of the head or heart we find ourselves enmeshed in, pent up emotions, reflections, frustrations and realizations can best be expressed through intricately woven lines of poetry. Some of the poems teach the readers the essence of love; need for courage, expression of friendship, passion, success, faith and resistance of fear which limits man’s development. While emphasizing that love is a major ingredient of peaceful daily human existence, the author counsels man to be bold to confront inner limitations for a worthy existence and not to be discounted by the proclamations of negative people.

The author admonishes the reader not to measure successful living by the parameters of economic gains and wealth alone but by the number of footmarks that they are able to imprint on the sands of time, through hard work, determination, resilience, courage, selfconfidence, honesty and integrity. Like the river, she reminds her readers to determine that the detours, delays, curves, twists and turns of life will not stop them from pursuing their dreams to fulfilment no matter the obstacles and limitations placed on their path.

The One Hundred and Thirty poems engage human intelligence without losing the import of the messages they are meant to convey. It is noteworthy that the number of poems did not fade in relationship to the issues addressed and the lessons learnt from the contents. For easy reading and referencing, they