A GOOD MAN HAS COME AND GONE
Last Saturday, I joined my JSS and SSS mate – now a brother - Gyan William, to bid farewell to his late father, Elder Sampon Kwame Gyan. If there’s any man I ever encountered who, in my estimation, came close to being a perfect human being, it’s Elder Gyan.
In the words of Mr. Djembi Lawer, one of Elder Gyan’s confidantes,
“Elder Gyan’s lifestyle advertised
his church, the Church of Pentecost”. He lived the tenets of the church to the
latter and exuded, in no mean measure, the characteristics of a Christian.
He had a certain level of humility, decency and strong faith that
put him in a bracket of his own. He was a man of refreshing candour, one with an
endearing presence. He made sure he didn’t tell us – those who encountered him
at close range - how to live, instead he lived and let us watch him do it. His
whole life was one of fellow-feeling, modesty and simplicity; he had no time
for excesses of any kind.
It’s
often said that artisans are cunning but this man was a different brand. He
built my dad’s house and many others in the Odumase-Krobo community and so this
eulogy is born out of experience and coming deep from my heart.
He was a workaholic; idleness was never a part of him. He worked
his way into recognition everywhere he went. It is amazing how God, in his
infinite wisdom, put all these qualities in one man.
Given the chance to describe him, I will say he was a good man. We
bade him farewell with tears rolling down our cheeks unbidden. The emptiness
arising out of his physical loss is so overwhelming but J. K. Rowling’s words
provide some form of relief. He said “To the well-organized mind and the man
who has fully lived, death is but the next great adventure”. Old man is simply
on an adventure now, and mortals as we are, we shall take our turn on this
adventure that will give us the opportunity to meet him again.
Fondly remembered, Elder Gyan.
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