Every family should have a book

Every family should own a book.

Not just a photo album.

Not a group chat archive.

A book of records.

A book that carries the names of everyone ever born into that family.

Names matter. Erasure is a quiet violence.

A book that records those who have diied and how they did.

Not to reopen wounds, but to stop pretending wounds never existed.

A book that preserves the beautiful things that happened in that family.

The love. The sacrifices. The victories that didn’t make headlines but made survival possible.

A book that names the things that were never allowed to be said.

The silence. The shame. The secrets that shaped behaviour more than truth ever did.

A book that records what truly happened.

Not the edited version.

Not the one told at weddings.

The real one.

Because families don’t just pass down DNA.

They pass down patterns.

They pass down trauma.

They pass down honour.

They pass down courage.

And what is not named is repeated.

What is not recorded is rewritten.

What is not confronted becomes a legacy.

Every family needs a book of records.

So healing can stop being accidental

and start being intentional.

Stories abound.

A young boy once told me he had faint recollections of his grandfather ...

how the old man spoke of communicating with animals,

how there were things he could do, things he understood.

But that was all.

Fragments.

Echoes.

The science of it was never passed down.

The explanation was never written.

What made his lineage distinct was lost, not because it was false,

but because it wasn’t recorded.

Another story:

A certain woman fled ancestral worship in her community.

She hated and feared it so deeply that she did not attend her own mother’s funeral because she didn't want to be part of the rituals it entailed. She knew her lineage and what they practiced.

She cut herself off from her family, from tradition, from anything that reminded her of where she came from.

But she never explained why to her children...

What happened next was predictable.

Her child returned to the very practices his mother almost died escaping.

Not out of rebellion, but of ignorance, because when people don’t know why,

they repeat what should have ended.

Or abandon what should have been preserved. After all, novelty can be enthralling.

This is the cost of silence.

This is the cost of undocumented truth.

When truth is not written,

meaning is lost.

Discernment is lost.

Freedom is lost.

That is why ...

Every family should own a book.

A book of records.

Not folklore. But genuine interactions and encounters.

Not selective storytelling. Records.

Not to glorify the past, 

but to explain it.

Not to bind the future,

but to free it.

Because inheritance without understanding can be a curse,

and rebellion without knowledge is just another form of bondage.

Write it down.

Explain the why.

Or generations will keep paying for amnesia they did not choose.

Now the warning,

Whoever takes upon themselves the authority to write that book, to be the record-keeper, to be the custodian of family memory, must do so in truth, in fairness, and in love, with the fear of God.

Not ambition.

Not ego.

This role must be void of personal aggrandizement,

void of selective memory,

void of the urge to lie, polish, or pervert justice.

Because the moment corruption enters the record,

the moment truth is bent for fake praise or convenience,

the moment history is rewritten to protect image instead of integrity—

consequences follow.

Not symbolic consequences.

Real ones.

For the record-keeper answers not only to people,

but to God.

And to generations yet unborn.

This is not a suggestion.

It is a prerequisite—because the absence of honest records has cost Africa dearly.

Stolen histories.

Broken identities.

Children inheriting confusion instead of clarity.

A young boy once said to me, “If no one tells the truth, how will we know who we are?” I said "look to Christ". But I know why he asked, I know also that knowledge would have made discovering Christ even easier for him. I know it would have made him choose Christ even more willingly.

That question alone is an indictment.

Truth is not dangerous.

Silence is.

Misrepresentation is.

False glory is.

So if you will keep the book,

keep it clean.

Keep it honest.

To lie in records is not small.

To rewrite history to protect pride is to bewitch a generation.

And whoever attempts to do this will face dire consequences.

This is not poetry.

This is instruction.

Write it truthfully.

Write it fairly.

Write it lovingly.

Or do not write it at all.

Because generations are listening.

And history eventually exposes everyone.

Janelle Obieroma