The atmosphere in the room changed when she walked into the room. She was a sight to behold; tall, slender but curvaceous in all the right places and drop-dead gorgeous. Everyone was spell-bound in that moment; about five minutes ago, the entire conference room had been gyrating and the source of contention was the new female CEO. Men and women alike argued that the company was at a cross roads and needed the firm grip of a strong man, and not just any person. When they were told that a 35-year-old woman was coming to take over the running of the company, they almost had a fit. Half of the officers were outraged; the other half were intrigued and looked forward to seeing the new CEO.
Many made certain insultingly immoral insinuations about how she must have gotten to the top. But as soon as she took her seat at the head of the table and opened her mouth, she dispelled every such notion from the minds that conceived it. Indeed she had climbed the ladder of success and gotten there on merit, and it was plain for all to see just after a month of running the company. She took it out of the mess it had been to the top of the chain, competing with the biggest in the game.
She gets up at four in the morning every day, says a prayer for her husband, children, parents, brothers, sisters, the orphans, the sick, the hopeless and many others. She then heads to the kitchen and prepares everyone’s breakfast and lunch pack and then she proceeds to wake everybody up, showers the little children and prepares them for school. By the time everyone is done with their breakfast, daddy puts them all in his car and drives them off to school. She is then left to clean up the entire house and put every displaced object in its place. This takes about an hour, leaving her absolutely with no time for rest. So, she hops into the shower, gets dressed and heads out to her office, which is close by.
At the close of work, she rushes out to pick up the kids from school, takes them home and starts to work on dinner for everyone. When this is done, she supervises the children’s homework, after which she gets them ready for bed and both she and daddy tuck them in and kiss them goodnight. She then proceeds to do the laundry and lay out the children’s uniforms for the next day. By the time she is done, the entire house is so silent that she could hear a pin drop. She then does a final check on the door locks before she showers and takes herself to bed.
There are many more categories of beautiful, hard working and intelligent women but it would be almost impossible for me to summarise their day-to-day lives because we are in different walks of life and are all so diverse. However, one common thread runs through – we are strong girls.
Oluwaseyi Lawal
