ALL HAIL MOTHERS

No, I choose not to succumb to laziness. I was thinking of just recycling my Mothers’ Day article for 2011 but common sense has prevailed and here I am doing what gives me pleasure and fulfillment. I was getting so soaked in the kind of unnecessary busyness that has come to characterize my life of recent only to be jerked back to reality by a popular mart where I bought stuff that it would be Mothers’ Day on March 18.
There were conspiracies against this celebration of motherhood but I have weathered the storm to make sure this gets posted at all costs. PHCN did their best and my ever troublesome generator joined the conspiracy. Work did not allow the space and time but I am squeezing out the time and space to do this because mothers are one in a kind.
If I will forget everything, it definitely will not be one of my nursery school songs. “Who sat and watched my infant head, when sleeping on my cradle bed, and tears of sweet affection shed, MY MOTHER”. This was one song we all sang with devotion back then. We were actually oblivious of the important role of mothers back then. We just caught fun singing about Mummy.
There is always this bond, that ties the mother and the child. The kind of bond that nobody cannot explain. Ever seen a lunatic look admirably at her child? That is to tell you they also have a period of sanity after all. They are so aggressive when it comes to their children. Try everything and you will get away with it but don’t you ever mess with a made woman’s child. That’s the power of the mother-child bond; one of the mysteries of creation that is simply beyond human comprehension.
Make no mistake, you have a mother, but you have mothers as well. Your biological mother only brought you to the world. Mother figures get to emerge in one way or the other in our life’s journies. You say no? What about your primary school teacher? And for those privileged to attend playgroups, what about the Aunties then, the ones who changed your nappies?
What about that aunt that took care of you and your siblings? Or that neighbor that fed you and your siblings when Mother came late from work? Have you spared a little thought for the friends that your mother have, those ones who always cared for you all. They also are your mothers, they are the ones I call mother figures in our lives, they are indispensable.
In the Yoruba setting, there is a proverb that says “oju kan nii’bimo, igba oju lo n wo”, which easily translates as “one person gives birth, two hundred people train the child”. This goes to say that no one individual has one mother, we all have mothers and mother figures or whatever we choose to call them. They are the ones who have formed us into what we are.
Let me get a little explicit, without a mother, our fathers’ seeds would be very useless. It would be mere liquid as there would be no eggs to fertilize. Daddy’s only contribution was the semen and from there mother took over. She bore the pregnancy and took care from the moment the child arrived. Does father have enough time and emotion to care that much? Mother it is that can do all and more.
Therefore today, I say to my biological mother, Aunty Vic and all the mother figures in my life, HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY. Also to all potential mothers, I beseech you to be wonderful mothers who will make your children proud of you. The way I am proud of my mother and mothers. At the risk of over-emphasizing the celebration, HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY, tell her you love her and show it in a special way.