About
Augustus

I woke up abruptly at about 4.30 am and instinctively knew something was different- not bad or good but different. Something had changed. I briefly pondered what had woken me up and realized my phone was ringing in my study downstairs. I groggily headed down but the ringing had stopped before I got to it. I saw my younger sister had called- thrice. At this time of the morning it could not be good news and I hoped it was something that was benign enough to wait until morning and she would not call back. But surely enough she did.  “Daddy is not responding”, she said… “I am heading over there now. I have called the doctor and he will be meeting me there too”.  My heart sank within me but I managed to blurt out “call me when you get there”. The next time she called she was sobbing, “He’s gone”.  

My Daddy now belonged to the ages.

We lived 7500 miles apart, on 2 different continents, so, to stay connected, my father and I had a weekly Sunday touch point that we did for the last 10 years of his life- his weekly “Sunday medicine” as he called them. I would call, usually around my lunchtime, and we would catch up on the week and the family. Occasionally talk about problems and solutions. He would advise me on “growing up”- what to expect to see evolve physically and psychologically past 40, dealing with the inevitable challenges of aging and being a parent. How to remain agile and evolve both physically and in my role as a Dad, especially as my children transitioned from tweens through teenage to young adults. He was also- as later events would show- preparing me by admonition and by demonstrated examples for challenges and what at the time would have seemed as inconceivable and irredeemable tragedies. How, and the need to anchor unto God no matter what.

A major part of conversations were around spiritual matters and insights into scripture. The consummate apologetic, he was passionate about the practical and pragmatic application of scriptural principles to everyday life.  We spent many a Sunday call talking about excerpts of scripture and his interpretations of them- a sizable number of which were arguably not necessarily mainstream.

Our last “Sunday medicine” call (and indeed the last time I spoke with him) was on Sunday March 30th 2014.  We finished our almost 90 minute conversation around 1.15 PM Pacific Standard Time. Some 30 hours later he had gone to be with the Lord.  Consistent with a scripture I had said as a prayer over him a few weeks prior (“As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Deuteronomy 33:25), he had gone to take a nap after breakfast on Tuesday morning- perfectly healthy and unusually physically capable for an 85 year old man- and awoke on the other side of eternity.  That part of his passing was a deep consolation to me.  

However a huge regret I had was that I had not thought to capture his scriptural and spiritual insights while he was alive- and shortly after he left, I was in a deep panic that I would soon forget. My worry was unnecessary. In his characteristic meticulous manner, my dad had made small notes to himself that he kept in his night drawer. Going through these after he had been laid to rest, I found that I could probably reconstruct a lot of his perspectives and talks through his notes and drafts.

My daughter, Tólúwálópẹ́ (Tolu) and I embarked upon a project to do just that. We decided that we would collate, digitize, review, edit (as appropriate) and look for an opportunity to share his thoughts. So after the scans of all the drafts were done, Tolu spent many hours painstaking reading and transcribing my dad’s cursive handwriting, simultaneously editing and making the text more readable. She would describe that as an ethereal experience that at times felt like she was in an ongoing active conversation with him, trying to understand his reasoning for his positions and the key messages he was trying to convey. 

Never in my wildest or scariest dreams did I conceive that my darling Tólú would precede me in death. Yet, on February 25th 2023, she left us most unexpectedly to be with The Lord. This was exactly 5 months after she had wrapped up the transcription work and written the foreword. 

We judge Him Faithful.

One of the reasons why Tólú and I decided to share this was to encourage critical and sometimes difficult thinking into Who God is and how through the course of our lives, develop a personal relationship with Him. That through the complexities and vicissitudes of our life’s journey, this understanding of Who God is, ultimately gets us to a stage where we resolve that regardless of our physical situation and emotional state, we would trust Him. That even if “He slay us”, yet would we trust Him even as we embrace the paradoxes of our walk with Him (Job 13:15).

My father was big on posterity. One of his favorite quotes (partially attributed to the Roman Emperor- Marcus Aurelius) was “live each day as if it were your last, yet plan as if you were going to live forever”. This compilation is intended to share his thoughts with future generations, to give them a glimpse to the spiritual insights and perspectives of a truly unique father with the hope that they would be both encouraged and inspired. 

“Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim His righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn”. Psalm 22: 30-31.