She Gave Away the Salt. He Gave Away the Last Yam. Celebrate Them While You Can.

That serious little girl beside her? That's me. Mum is holding my baby brother. I had no idea then that one day I would be writing about her to the whole world. But here we are.

There is a particular kind of person who cannot walk past a need without doing something about it. They don't announce it. They don't post about it. They... act.

My mother is one of those people.

We call her Iyanloolu, a nickname her children gave her, one she earned fully. She always said that if she ever stood for election in our neighbourhood, she would win, and she probably would.

Once, she stepped out for her usual neighbourly rounds, the kind of front-gate conversations that made growing up so rich and so full of life, and came back with a stranger. The new family down the road had been asking where they could buy salt. Just salt. And my mother thought: why should they go and buy what I can give?

So she brought them home.

My father, just like her, heard a hungry stranger at the door one evening and gave them our last yam. THE last one. Gone. My mother only discovered this the next morning when she went to cook it for breakfast.

He slept soundly. She managed. The stranger ate.

That was our home.

Celebrate them now. Please.

I am writing this as a birthday tribute to my mother, who turns another year older last Sunday. But I am also writing it as a gentle nudge, perhaps an urgent one, to anyone reading this.

Celebrate your parents now while they can hear you. They can read your words, see your face light up as you tell the stories, and feel the warmth of being truly seen and appreciated.

I know this from both sides now. I still have my mother, and I am writing about her loudly and intentionally this week while she can read every word. My father? I carry him in stories. In the yam he gave away. In the strangers he fed in me.

We are so good at eulogies. Let's get better at celebrations while there is still time. We cry, and we say "she was this" and "he was that," and every word is true and every word is gorgeous, and every word arrives too late for the person it's about.

Say it now.

Write the post. Make the call. Tell the story at the dinner table. Let them laugh at themselves. Let them be embarrassed. Let them wave you away and say "aaah, stop it", and then say it again anyway.

On mothers specifically, and why God was right

God looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” And so Eve arrived.

(We will, at this point, politely brush what happened next firmly under the carpet and move swiftly on. 😄)

But the principle stands. The woman in the home, the mother, the nurturer, the one who notices when the salt is running low and when someone at the door hasn't eaten, is not a supporting role. She is an architect. She is the structure that holds everything else up.

My mother didn't just raise children. She built a culture. A value system. A way of moving through the world that said: people matter more than convenience, generosity costs less than we think, and a stranger is just a neighbour you haven't fed yet.

I carry that with me every day. In my work. In my relationships. In my embarrassing inability to mind my own business. 😂

If your mother is still here, call her. Visit her. Write about her.

If she is no longer here, write about her anyway. Her story deserves to be told.

And if you are a mother yourself, you are doing something that cannot be measured, cannot be replaced, and will echo in your children long after you think anyone is paying attention.

They are paying attention.

Happy birthday, Iyan Loolu. We see you. We celebrate you. We are so glad you never let that family go and buy their salt. 🧂❤️

And to Dad, RIP, the man who gave away the last yam and slept soundly. You are in every word of this. 🕊️

Are your parents still with you? Drop a comment and share one thing you love about them. Let's celebrate them together.