Tribute to Mrs. Gbobaniyi, My First Grade Teacher.

Today, I remember Mrs. Gbobaniyi, my 1st grade teacher at The Apostolic Church Primary School, Ebute-Metta, Lagos, Nigeria.

Three generations of my family passed through the kind, patient and life-nurturing hands of this great teacher (my big sister, myself and my kid sister).

As it was with my big sister when she was in the 1st grade, I was also the teacher's pet in my own time. And this came with the responsibility of having my school works and manners scrutinized at every turn by the teacher who didn't want me to disappoint her. Of course, my fringe benefits included her lunch left-overs everyday while the entire class hated me with envy.

But the greatest thing I gathered from Mrs. Gbobaniyi, even at that tender age, was the ability to separate personal problems from assigned official responsibility. All the time this woman was being an ever-smiling, patient, loving, caring and hard-working teacher, she was going through the stress of struggling to have a child of her own in a society where a married woman without a child was treated like a leper. And because I was so close to her, I was able to feel her pain and notice the few moments when she would put her head on the desk to cry on her Bible while praying softly.

And, somehow, I must have felt more relieved and happy than Mrs. Gbobaniyi and her husband when she finally got pregnant and gave birth to her own child...even though I was, by then, in a higher grade in the school.