In loving memory of Melita Happy Kutorkor Antiaye (1939–2025).
When you grow up with little, dreaming does not come naturally. It has to be shown to you. Sometimes gently. Sometimes without words.
For me, dreaming began with a woman many people called Teacher Happy. To others, she was Madam Happy. To us, she was simply Mama Happy.
I did not grow up in her home. I did not know her for long at first. I only remember seeing her after church, seated close to the entrance at the Apostle faith church (La branch), almost as if she had chosen that spot on purpose. From there, she handed out biscuits and sweets to children. It looked small. It was not. For some children, it was just a treat. For others, especially those who had nothing to ask for, it meant being noticed.
She saw my siblings and me only once after church. Just once. Yet that single encounter opened a door that changed my life.
Through her, I was given the chance to live with her children, who were well-to-do, disciplined, and intentional about life. In that house, I saw something I had never really seen before. Structure. Stability. Possibility. It was there that I first understood that life could be planned, that the future was something you could work towards.
Mama Happy did not have much, but she gave everything she had. She gave time. She gave guidance. She gave correction. And she did not soften it. If you were wrong, she told you plainly. But it always came from love. Even now, long after leaving her home, her training has never left me. It follows me everywhere.
Her hall was her quiet classroom. On her shelves were children’s Bible stories and handwritten lesson notes.
Whenever she felt we were idle or drifting, she handed us a book and asked us to read. At the time, it felt ordinary. Looking back, it was foundational. Those books shaped our thinking and anchored our faith.
Morning devotion was not optional. It set the tone for the day and calmed the home. Sundays were lessons of their own. A taxi would be arranged to the church, but punctuality mattered. If you were not ready by 7:30 a.m., you walked. That simple rule taught me discipline and respect for time more than any classroom ever could.
Today, I am a sports journalist, telling stories of people who fight odds and chase impossible dreams. When I reflect on how I got here, I know it did not start in a newsroom. It started in her home.
My name is Joseph Ayinga. But when I left her family, I adopted the name Walter, taken from one of her daughters. I did not do it to change who I was. I did it to carry something with me. To remind myself of the values she passed on to me. To honour the woman who made me believe I could become something more.
Mama Happy was a mother, a grandmother, and an aunt to everyone she met. She touched the lives of the poor not through grand gestures, but through dignity and consistency. She touched my life by giving me proximity to a better future.
I believe God used her as a vessel. By simply allowing me to stay with her children, He showed me what was possible. And for that, I will always be grateful.
She lived to 86. She lived fully. She lived well.
Melita Happy Kutorkor Antiaye, rest peacefully in the bosom of the Lord.
You made me dream.
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