…Celebrating My Children, Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren, Including Those Yet Unborn

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)

Do I have any regrets as I clock seventy (70) years of age on Sunday, 9^th February, 2025?

Is there any portion or part or years or months or weeks or days of my life to date that I would have wished I had lived this portion differently? Is there, say, anything I would sincerely have wished for differently than what I have become or how I have lived my life to date?

If I have the unique opportunity to come back after death, would I have asked for any other lifestyle? New parents – different father and or different mother? New siblings, in kind and number? Or same parents and siblings?

Would I have wished for a different elementary school than the Axim Anglican Primary and Middle Schools in the sixties or the same?

Should I have insisted on accepting to attend Adisadel College in 1966 for my secondary school education than wait another year with another Common Entrance to gain admission to my father’s alma mater, Mfantsipim School in 1967? Does it then mean that my three (3) boys – Paul, Daniel and Magnus Junior; would also have attended Adisadel College, if I had taken that as my option? What about my four (4) other children – Ethel, Jane, Regina and Theophilus; and my ten (10) grandchildren – Jonathan, Magnus Jaden, William, Maame Baanua, Nana Benya Naabe, Ewurasi Ahema, Magnus Asher Riley, Asiel Kai, Avery Lyon, and Benjamin Narteh Joojo Junior?

And if I had attended Adisadel College, would I have been appointed a Grounds Prefect in the sixth form of 1972/73 than later at Mfantsipim School in 1973/74?

Would I have had a whole new life as different from a post 7-year-Mfantsipim School; a 6-year stint at KNUST Land Economy Department; to Kumasi Stadium to Kumasi / Accra Stadia of the National Sports Council (… becoming the first ever Chairman of the first ever then Workers Defence Committee [WDC] in 1984 inaugurated by the then Staff Sgt. Joseph Adjei Buadi and supported by Comrade Zaya Yeebo as the PNDC Secretary for Youth and Sports); to Ghana Food Distribution Corporation (GFDC) and then a breakthrough to start a set of private weekly newspapers in Arts & Music, Socio-Political Affairs and Sports; and turning all into sportbusiness consultancy services after playing Host on a weekly ‘SPORTS DIGEST’ discussion programme for years?

The last forty (40) years of the seventy (70) have been a life for a screenplay of a future blockbuster as ‘LIFE & TIMES OF THE GHANAIAN’, and the script is for another time.

However, at the twilight of my life @ 70, I can only but contemplate, even as I revere each passing moment and day as gifts of the Lord. It is also the time not only to work on one’s own salvation for the last lap, but to consider and shape the kind of future one wants or desires to bequeath to his descendants, mindful that one’s works whilst alive, shapes or impacts the destinies of many others as descendants.

In this twilight also, I am still dreaming of the possibility for Ghana co-hosting the 2042 FIFA World Cup with say, Nigeria, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire; and also executing the “NEW GHANA 2057 REBIRTH INITIATIVE”.

So now, I can only wish myself – ‘HAPPY 70^th BIRTHDAY, NAABE’ and thank you LORD for this life, well-lived.