When I started living with my mum, I don’t know at what age but I was really small, my mum took me with my grandmother to the city to visit my uncle, her elder brother. She says we had been on this journey when I was very little but I was too little to recollect any memories from trips before this one. The roads were not yet as good as they are now especially in the very steep hills leading to small towns then big ones then even bigger ones. It was quite an adventure.
The reason this particular journey stands out for me is that she started opening my eyes as a very small girl to dream. She must have been deliberate in showing me the world beyond our small village and our pretty undeveloped small district. My mother had studied in the city with the help of her two elder brothers before coming back to the village to join the nursing school. This nursing school is one of the best though. She kept showing me nice places and telling me their names. She however put the most emphasis on big schools.
As we approached the city, she pointed to an exotic looking school, St. Lawrence London college and then Paris Palace and then to Buddo college. She told me to look keenly at these magnificent places and remember whenever I go to school that if I can work very hard and become the best student in my class, she will do whatever it takes for me to join any school of my choosing. This was a great promise which she followed through. Disclaimer: I did not go to these schools but I went to the school of my choosing which to me was better than these ones.
Now that I am reflecting on the gifts and sacrifices of my dearest mother, I think that she looked at this little girl, brought into her life without a plan but whom she received as a blessing and took care of as a precious thing. She probably began to look at me and dream of all the things I could be. I saw her work so hard to live to this promise. She took me to a Catholic boarding school away from my village and from my district at a time when she was earning so little and taking care of fees and some needs for my brother and a few cousins and trying to be helpful to her elderly parents. When I think right now about how little she earned I wonder how she was able to do the things that she did. This specific move was made to bring me closer to the dreams she held for me.
My mother did very many things to live up to this promise. We shall have time to talk about all the selfless things including how I don’t remember her buying clothes and shoes like many women I met and continue to meet even though she was working. She has lived her everyday for us; pouring every ounce of love into her children, nieces, nephews, parents, siblings.
But today was about the promise. I am because a village girl dreamed for her child instead of shunning me from hate and disappointment for the youth that I stole from her.
Mother dear. 