THE MAGIC WORDS

It a beautiful sunny day, clear clouds, birds sing, kids playing, it was just such a wonderful day until we heard a horrendous scream of a woman. We dropped everything we were doing and ran towards where the scream was coming from. We discovered that the heartbreaking scream and crying was coming not far from where we were. We arrived at the scene only to find a woman helplessly on the ground covered in dirty and an ocean of tears rolling down her cheeks. Her sight was so somber, heartbreaking and very frightening that it made our eyes watery before we could even understand why she was crying. We inquired from her what the problem was, she didn’t respond in words but she just pointed at a window just above her. We went closer to the window to see what really made this woman so broken and helpless. What we saw was so heart crushing, shocking, unbelievable and very painful. It was such a horrifying sight that made us shade a tear upon taking a gazing only once. It was very confusing to understand why. We all wanted a valid and better explanation on why did it happen that way and what was the reason behind this tragic situation and yet none of us had an answer. Until today the memories of that little 13 years old boy hanging in his room with an aluminum wire strapped on his neck, urine and feces on the floor brings sensations of pain and sadness to my heart. His eyes jutted like they would fall from their sockets signifying the painful, gruesome and inhuman death the poor little boy experienced. A stool on which he stood on laid upside down on the floor. My mind struggles to comprehend and accept the painful loss of such a young handsome boy. Potential lost.

 As we stood at the scene police came and discovered a wet paper probably from the urine in the dead boys’ pocket. The paper was a note and the very last words the boy left to this world. The note had only one sentence. ‘Death is better than to be told that I have not future because I have AIDS!’ Apparently, this boy was born with an HIV virus. The virus he took from his mom who was past gone due to the same disease. The boy was staying with his aunt and every time he was reminded by the aunt about his HIV status and it was used as a way to remind the boy about his position in the house. Whenever the boy makes a mistake, the aunt would speak hurtful words to the boy and the words you have no future were always what the boy heard every day. The neighbors said the boy used to tell his friends that his nothing and he wishes he could be free from the pain of dying a slow death like his mom because he has AIDS. These were just words, no physical harm was done to the boy but the constant outpouring of hurtful words was more painful and unbearable that destroyed the inner core of the boy. As Jessamyn West said, "A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever." The result was this tragic loss. Words robed the whole world the gifts that the boy was born with. There was maybe a specific problem that the boy was born to solve that would have benefited the whole world but that problem might remain unsolved, depriving the whole world of a better place that we all crave and cry for every day.

Many of us can relate to this sorrowful story. Every word we utter has an enormous power behind it that can give life or make the whole world to come down crashing to its knees. The tongue has no bones but is strong enough to break a heart. There’s power to give life and cause death on the tongue. I remember attending a music show one day with someone so close and dear to me and we saw a young beautiful girl enjoying the show. She was dancing, jumping and shouting through her choreography was a bit out of sync with songs being played but she was happy, so free from any form of corruption and decay. My friend said, ‘she so innocent and she believes anything is possible until someone will come and destroy her confidence and innocence with words’. These words kept echoing in my mind until today. Then it dawns on me that what people need is that magic word, ‘you can do it and achieve great things in life’. These words work like magic. They change people from the bottom to the top, from a C student to an A student.

Some of us we are still struggling to make it to the top simply because someone told us that we cannot amount to anything, some of us lost opportunities that could have been life changing because no one believed in us that we can do it. I remember, I a struggled to understand and pass mathematics during my primary school days because the math teacher would always come in class and shout at us, reminding us how poor students we were. This made me believe that am dumb and I always failed math and this attitude and belief I took with it to my secondary school. I did not do well in math until one teacher told me that am smart and he doesn’t understand why I keep failing math. I told him that am very poor at math and I will not pass math. He told me that math is simple and I just need to believe that I can pass and enjoy working on math problems because he believes in me and my abilities. From that day I slowly developed a passion for math. Though I never became an A student in math I moved from a D student to a B student. That primary teacher nearly succeeded to destroy my life because unbelief is so collusive and spreads like cancer to the other sectors of your life until you reach a point of believing that you’re useless and there’s nothing that you can do that will ever be good. It is the little foxes that cause a lot of damage to life than the hyenas. Foxes are fast and agile and they cause massive damage to an animal in a short space of time. These little foxes are the small words we tell others or used to describe others. Words like useless, good for nothing, dumb, stupid and such other many words that dehumanize people. They sound easy and simple but they carry the power to brutally destroy one's confidence. A quote by unknown person says, "Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten." This can’t be overemphasized. Words leave a permanent print in people’s hearts and as one of the greatest women ever lived, Mother Teresa, said, "Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

KushandWizdom said, "Words are free but it’s how you use them that may cost you." See, there is always a cost that is attached to every word we utter. The cost once paid could bring about profits or super pain and regret as returns. The profits could be seeing someone you encouraged, motivated and inspired testifying that he or she has made it in life because of one small word you said that changed the trajectory his or her life for the better. We all need someone to believe in us. There are times when we can’t believe in ourselves maybe because of past failures or some negative and unfortunate situations but if someone tells us that we have what it takes to make it, it fires back that lost confidence in us even though if the person just said the words to please us and he or she doesn’t really believe in us but still the positive words makes a positive impact in our lives.

What we say are like seeds planted in a garden from which one day we could reap the fruits from. Some wise man once said that ‘words are seeds that do more than blow around. They land in our hearts and not the ground. Be careful what you plant and careful what you say. You might have to eat what you planted one day.’ One day we will surely gather we had planted!

I would like to leave you with this thought: remember that time you were unfairly treated, criticized and told how bad and poor you are. How did we feel? How do we feel when we have given our best and someone comes and tells us that have we done is useless and trash without even recognizing the effort you have put into the work? How do we feel when no one believes in us, in our abilities, skills, and talents? I feel bad about all this, what gives us the right to do the same to others? It only takes someone who has ever slept hungry to understand what it means to starve! It would be easy for such a person to provide a little morsel of bread to a starving person. Likewise, if we have ever experienced the pain of harsh and unedifying words, we should be able to say better words to others. If we have ever partaken in the joy of being edified by positive and encouraging words, reciprocating the same to other should be very fulfilling to us knowing that we have a difference in someone else’s lives. We can change the world for the better by one kind word. Choose to be that person that makes a positive impact on people’s lives.

"Kind words are a creative force, a power that concurs in the building up of all that is good, and energy that showers blessings upon the world." -Lawrence G. Lovasik.