Honour your mother

It takes nine months of tiredness, morning sickness, stress, occasional ailments, life and death moments and labour with the most excruciating pain to bring forth a child. I have been there, I know.

The long nights of discomfort when the bump does not let you turn in your bed, long days when you are not sure how to seat, where to place your body, where to place the bump.

Modernity has made it look sexy with naked baby bumps popping up everywhere on the internet, on TV, in films. But being pregnant is certainly not the most sexy thing nor is it the most comfortable thing in the world. But it is beautiful; it is the Lord’s precious process of bringing a human being into the world.

The labour is best experienced, hard, long, painful and the result, the baby, is worth the trouble and as soon as the baby comes, one forgets the experience and revels in the joyous moment of a new birth.

Even with modern technology, one still has to go through a measure of pain from Caesarian sections. Some of us have been privileged to have both types of births. It is a privilege to be given the opportunity to have children, a huge privilege indeed. Added to the moment of birth, is the lifelong responsibility of motherhood.

The flurry of a child running towards you in trust, the first walk, the first toothy smile, the pictures of the one year child. The pains/joys of puberty. that first social event with your heart in your mouth. The first boy she brings home. We mothers tend to over-interrogate our children’s friends. We do it out of love although it can be fairly awkward. Who is the girl? If our son brings home a girl. Is she good enough, pretty enough, smart enough?

Then when our children’s personal journey begins, we stretch our necks to make sure they are fine. We worry endlessly. It’s the work of mums worldwide. We are chief-worriers. Its a life long journey.

We worry when a child does not walk on time. We worry when our children are sick. We worry when they travel. We pray through flights and journeys. We are prayer warriors.

For mothers even if our children are 50 year olds, we are still their mums, they are still our babies.

It is on the basis of the work that mothers do worldwide that they are so revered by all and sundry.

The Holy books have so much to say about honouring one’s mother that those who do not can never fully fathom the consequences. The Bible says in Exodus 20:12 “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you”.

The Quran in the Hadith says “A man came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Messenger of God! Who among the people is the most worthy of my good companionship?

The Prophet said: Your mother. The man said, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man further asked, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man asked again, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your father. (Bukhari, Muslim)”.

This is how it is; this is how it has always been. So hey, how have you honoured your mother? By the way when last did you see her? What did you buy her last and it does not have to be expensive? Note must be made that mothers do not live forever. You must love her now, honour her now, visit her now.

One day she simply will no longer be there. As all things mortal, you would find that she has been called and you can no longer give or visit or honour. Then there would be regrets.

I love my mum. Note that I have not used the past tense because while she is gone, I speak of her as if she were in the present. Her legacies are everywhere in the soups I enjoy cooking, in her words of wisdom, in the clothes she gave me, in my children whom she helped me to nurse, in her smile which I still see in the corner of my eyes, in her room which I visit from time to time to centre me, at her graveside where I still go to pray.

Do not leave it till tomorrow what you can do today. For her who watched over you, fed you, starved to give you food, sacrificed to enhance you, loved you warts and all, prayed always for you. It is time to honour your mother. Start today and do so every day, for mothers are special, God-sent, amazing. Enough said!

 

Eugenia Abu