Today we wake up to celebrate the day our Chairman was born, way back in 1948. There are people God chooses for us to learn from. How else do we explain a man so private yet with so public a presence and appeal? It can only be that we need to learn from them. And learn we have from Dr. Irvin Khoza. We are particularly grateful that as the Nation has learnt from a distance, we have the privilege of learning from close memorable interactions.
As we celebrate your birthday, which we know you would rather pass without any fanfare. You will probably wake up to check that all that needed to be done on a Saturday in which we have a game is done. You would personally go collect the flowers, the St Joseph’s that you ordered earlier in the week, for your visit to your Mother’s grave. You would include in this trip your Grandmother, our sister your daughter uZodwa, and the other departed loved ones. When we have curiously questioned why you are such a “party pooper”, you have pointed us to biblical scriptures, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting”, Ecclesiastes 7:2.
We decided to celebrate your birthday with due consideration to your value system. We choose to say out loud the lessons we have learnt from our privilege of sharing your space..
We remember your lesson on ATTITUDE. You tell us always that in the many years of your life you have seen people with average aptitude and talent that apply themselves far better and outperform talented people with bad attitudes.
We remember your lesson about HONESTY. You remind us always not to make excuses for our shortcomings for that hampers us from taking the required corrective action not to fail that way again.
We remember your lesson about basking in past glory. YOU CAN’T DRY TODAY’S WASHING WITH YESTERDAY’S SUN you always remind us. Our success put us on the pedestal. It sets us up to drill deep to prove our achievement was not a fluke.
As a celebration of your 70th Birthday, we have resolved to publish each day until your next birthday, a lesson we have had a privilege of learning from our close memorable interactions with you.
Thank you for the lessons. Enjoy your day.
Happy Birthday!
