The thing about miracles is that they come suddenly. You won’t esperrerit!

When they come, however, they make you smile, they make you happy, they make you laugh, they fill a gap. This, I perceive strongly, is what Mr. Adebayo saw that made him exclaim on the morning of his first daughter’s birth: It is a Miracle!
His lovely wife smiled, she had just found the perfect name.

One of the first things I noticed about the baby geh, twenty-something years later, was how her hands work miracles with a pen (or a keypad or a touch screen). She would spin words like a magic weaver, warp upon weft, and cause you to exclaim like her father did. Her mind would travel to unimaginable places and bring stories from afar, making them as real to you as the hair on your skin. You see those slim light-complexioned hands; they work Miracles!

On my way to meet her that afternoon at Big Treat, my mind was blank. There’s this thing with me when meeting folks from Facebook, I usually don’t know what to expect, so I push a just-go-with-it knob somewhere on my forehead and brace myself. Yes we had chatted and talked at length over the phone, but meeting people in person is an entirely different ball game.

Well, so I met her. I had on my polite smile just in case. I started out not saying much just in case. And you know what? She caught me.

‘You’re forming gentle geh abi?’

‘Ahn? No o.’

‘Hian. You better talk o.’

The playfulness and sincerity in her voice were my undoing. We started gisting and couldn’t stop. We couldn’t run out of things to say. We became like two peas in a pod. The connection? It was a Miracle!

Ohh, the geh can like to play ehn!

…and she be forming ‘I am taller than you.’ It’s the heels jor! :p

I like Miracle. A lot. I didn’t think I would this much. Like I said, I’m quite a wary person. A friend calls me a pseudo-extrovert. Deep inside I know I’m not as outgoing as I come across. But Miracle is a sweet girl, and she had all my defenses falling.

Mimi is real. She’s extremely down-to-earth and also really sincere. When she cares for you, it shows. When she laughs, it comes from deep down. When she shares her concerns, you can literally touch her soul.  She is passionate, really passionate about her dreams. She is deliberate about the things she does, she makes out time for her friends and she truly loves God.

Did I mention that she’s really intelligent? It’s pretty easy to infer from all the above. She makes an amazing conversationalist; one of those people who leave you after a discussion better than they met you.

I love Miracle. In a short time, I have found a friend in her. A sister, even. We could go on and on, or we could be silent and still click. I wonder why she never told me she could sing, but now that I know, and because I sing too, I will not let her rest.

Today, you add another year. I pray that you become all that you aspire to be. I pray the new year increases you in maturity, wisdom and wealth. You are an amazing writer, Mimi, and I pray that the new year takes you really far in that regard. I pray for you, my friend, that your heart and passion for God will never wane, and that your passion for impacting knowledge will be fruitful, raising role models and trail blazers across the earth. I pray for you, Mimi; wherever you go, in whatever you do, you create solutions, and you leave people exclaiming (as I imagine your father did when he saw you): It’s a Miracle!

Happy birthday hun.