adminMorris Mtisi
YET again the education sector has lost another hero in the civil service. WHEN William Shakespeare says, “Life is but a walking shadow / A poor player that frets and struts upon stage / And then heard no more / A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing,” some of us Literature pundits, laureates by aspiration or imagination think, reflect, ponder. How true Shakespeare’s notion is about life! We are only actors and actresses on this vast global theatre called Earth. Life is but a stage performance on which we act with vivid zeal and energy and are soon done with . . . and heard no more. ‘‘Out! Out! brief candle!’’
Some of us serious Christians at heart and not by boisterous show-off know this world is not our home. We are all visitors, strangers, passersby. We arrive home through the difficult gate of Death.
So whichever way you look at it, Shakespearean or Biblical lens, the truth remains what it is, cruel and unalterable. One day we shall all die. What we don’t know is the way how? But when the door of life is shut, will it matter what killed us? Will what people say, think and feel still matter when we are dead and gone? Food for thought indeed!
What we must worry about, I would have thought, must only be, have we played our part in this theatre performance called Life, and played it to the best of our capability before we go home? Mathew Tondoya is no more. Like a player in a great theatre performance you played your part between 1959 and September 2015. Mathew, losing your life like a candle in the wind! We shall go, follow, the same way . . . Out! Out! brief candle. This short life is like a candle burning in the wind.
Any time it can be blown out. I hope all those who owed you love had told you they love you before you left. For if they lost a chance it will never come again.
And the thought will eat on their hearts into their own graves. For we all make the mistake of not loving until it is too late to love. Perhaps if only we knew, we would spend more time in love than in hatred, foolish back-biting and intriguing.
Life is too short they say, to spend days, weeks, months and even years with lumps on our throats. Let us love our loved ones while the sun still shines. For when it stops shining, the darkness will be ours to endure into our own graves.
In this great pageant play called LIFE, Mathew you played the role of a young man, a student and scholar, then a father and school teacher. Mathew, you and I trained together as secondary school teachers at Gwelo Teachers’ College, later Gweru Teachers’ College and now Midlands State University-then you became a school administrator at St Patrick’s, Nyanyadzi, Dangamvura High School and finally Mutare Boys High School where death stole you away in your sleep hardly three weeks ago.
Mathew, you and I shared personal moments of merriment and academic distillation of wisdom. We always loved jostling, pushing and shoving intellectually, iron sharpening iron, they say. But we also shared sombre moments of personal pressures and distresses caused by realities around us. Yes you will remember that even in your eternal sleep.
Mathew, you confided in me on a number of issues you would never tell anyone else. I too. We were friends indeed and sometimes in need. Such was our friendship, benchmarked by a long period of history and common anxiety or cause.
Now, they have written and forgotten.
Yes writers have written well and eloquently,
About you, about how they perceived you, About your work, about the size of your funeral,
About how you died on that fateful night,
About how every road led to Yeovil cemetery
Where there you’d be laid forever in your narrow cell,
Speakers talked well and huge at your grave side,
Workmates, bosses and family members,
Talkers too gossiped and whispered,
About what they knew and knew not,
About what you did and did not do in your life,
Everyone knew something about you,
Death is the time for everybody to know something about us.
And yes about you everybody told the truth and lied,
Does it matter now Mathew Tondoya?
Forgive all of them as you will need forgiveness
When you arrive home before The FATHER.
Go well Mathew, Fear nothing Mathew,
Go well my friend, Go well ncxawee!,
You did your best ‘Mwalimu’- the great teacher, God will do the rest.
Fare thee well Tondoya.
Family has lost a father, to like you or not to-
That is not the question;
Mutare Boys High has lost a competent head,
Hard working and principled administrator,
To like you or not, that too is not the question.
Go well Mathew, Fare thee well Kamushinda
Rest in eternal peace Mateo wa Kamushinda.
Online Reporter