“ It is said that the young shall grow,” Mr Alaba noted as he stood up while he glanced at his two children, Deji and Digba, who sat between him and their mother, Mummy Deji. “ We have seen where the growth of the grown primed, it is the young that are still growing that we don't know their peak,” Mummy Deji answered as she diverted her concentration to the television screen.
“ This family feud has been from my father and his elder brother, and now we have inherited it,” Mr Alaba replied after sipping a cup of iced cream he took from the center table and gasped before he continued.
“I will tell you the story behind the statement,” he concluded, facing his children.
“So, Daddy, this statement that our first cousins always tell us whenever we argue in school was not coincidental; it has even turned into a cliche for me and Digba,” Deji stated curiously and looked at his younger brother Digba, who smirked surreptitiously as if Deji had cracked a sour joke.
“ Story, story ooo…. Story,” Mummy Deji said jokingly and picked up the remote to tune the television to a low volume.
“ I love to watch your father when he tells stories of such,” she concluded as she gave her husband, who was smiling at her, a soft slap on his lap.
“ Thank you, dear,” Mr Alabi complimented her and continued. He put his hands on her cheek and she tilted her head towards him with a Peck.
“ Your mother fell in love with me because of my sugar-coated lips, though the lips coated honesty and truths,” he illustrated with a wink before clearing his throat.
“ Oh no, your dad has finished my ice cream again! , I'll never forgive him until tomorrow,” she said, and everyone laughed together.
“Yes” as I said earlier, this issue erupted many years ago. The Alaba family was known for their mango plantation. For over seventy years, the trees had been planted by hand, watered by rain, and harvested with laughter.
Grandpa, Sir Alaba Alabi always told my father that mango trees were sacred, not just crops, but memory, discipline, and patience woven together.
Then came his two sons, my father and his elder brother. Adeniji Alabi, the elderly son, helped their father on the farm land while my father, Adedejo Alabi, went to school.
One day, my father's elder brother asked what he wanted to become in the future.
“ Will you be a farmer like me and father” He asked.
“ I don't want to be a farmer, and if I am to be, I will be a modernized one. You and father's farming way are old, and young shall grow and do better,” he replied.
This statement did not go well with the father's elder brother, as he felt disrespected and told their father, who supported him.
Many years passed, and my father had graduated from University, filled with new ideas. He saw drones online that could spray pesticides. He saw solar irrigation and digital markets that could triple profits.
When he returned home, he told his father and his elder brother.
“Sirs”, if we modernize, we can sell to the cities. The world is changing.
But his father and brother only smiled and said. “ The world may have changed, but the soil stays the same”
My father pushed again another time, and he brought a friend who designed farming apps, drew plans, spoke in graphs and numbers.
But the elders folded their arms. They saw in him not innovation but rebellion. To them, he wasn't improving the family's legacy, he was trying to rewrite it.
One evening, words turned into wounds. Father's elder brother said,
“ You think you know better because you have gone to school? You want to teach the tree how to grow?”
My father shouted back, “No, I want to teach it how to survive!”
The argument spread through the family like wildfire; some uncles took sides with the old ways, and a few with the new.
The women stopped cooking together and the laughter during the meal faded.
Months passed, and the plantation, once full of noise, became quiet. The drones my father bought sat in boxes as the old irrigation pipe rusted under the sun.
Then one dry season came, harsher than usual, no rain for months, and the old method failed. The soil cracked and the mangoes shriveled before they could ripen.
For the first time, their father sat under his favorite tree and said nothing. My father, though angry, walked towards him slowly and he didn't speak either. He just turned on a small solar pump and the water began to flow.
Their old man watched for a long while, then whispered, “Maybe the tree can learn, after all”.
From that day, the feud began to fade not because anyone won but because both sides learned that change is not betrayal and tradition is not weakness. They planted new trees beside the old ones, and for the first time in decades, the Alaba farm became both ancient and new, but my father's elder brother created enmity between our families, claiming that my father took his post as the first son of the family.” Mr Alabi concluded with a yawn.
“ So children, when you see your cousins behave in such a way, just know that it wasn't them, it was the hatred that has grown beyond time”. Mummy Deji replied and continued.
“ It is time to go to bed,” she concluded, and everyone went their separate ways with hugs and to crash down on their beds as the day was already done.