Mum

shikungigi

She will ask about my day, even when I don’t want to tell her about it, which is almost always all the time. She will linger, even when I snap at her. She will be so sweet that I will eventually tell her. And when I actually have a bad day and willingly tell her, she will ensure I am okay. She will call the next day when I get to work to follow up, even if I was with her a few minutes ago in the house.

She will tell me she is going to sleep because she is tired. At 4 pm. Then you hope for her sake that she actually sleeps. Only to see her back, talking about how she wants to sleep and asking why one of us is not back home yet. Sometimes I wonder whether she really sleeps or she is always up praying for us.

She will make a fuss when you show up home late, backed up by dad. They will tell you how it is not safe. How you need to take care of yourself. You will get mad. Tell them it is not late. 7:30 pm is not late. I am 25 and you should not treat me like this. But you know they are right. People get shot around here at 7 pm after all.

She will put off all her plans to pursue her Master’s degree for the five of you, then take it up when she feels she is ready. She will take up the most selfless degree you can think of, guidance and counselling. Not that she is not already well equipped for that sort of thing already. You should meet the people who are on her pro bono counselling list.

She will buy you clothes, even when you have grey hair. Especially the most important innerwear we sometimes tend to forget, she will get them for you regardless of your size. And they will fit perfectly.

She will find all kinds of brochures to convince you that you should sign up for a SACCO. She will place them on your bed because you tend to ignore her. She will remind you over and over again. She will do this until you begin to wonder whether you really deserve this kind of concern.

She will tell you to eat right. She will read something and share. Because you are not on WhatsApp for some convoluted reason, she will bring it to you and tell you to read it. Even if it’s something you read years ago before everyone was on WhatsApp. And you will read it because you do not want to let her efforts go to waste.

She will frown when any of you are fighting over petty issues. “Kai mutangiendana?” she’ll ask. She will tell you to function at a higher level than your sister, 16 years your junior. She will tell you to reason. She will inject you with so much sense over the years that going against what she has been instilling becomes preposterous. She once taught me that interrupting grownups when they were in conversation was bad manners, and I never did it ever again.

Sometimes she will be sarcastic. You will break a plate and she’ll tell you to break everything. And when you think about it, it is really funny now and you will do the same to your babies. She taught me to put everything back in its place once I set out to cooking in the kitchen. Even to date, I still ask her questions which she never tires of answering. She insists I have to perfect the art of chapati-making if I am to amount to much of a wife in the near future. This one is still a tug of war but I know she will eventually win it. She will make chapati on a whole weekday after work, simply because you are going back to school and should carry something nice.

She will be worried about your acne more than you ever will be. She will ask about your love life, even when you don’t want to tell her. She will trust you will make the right decisions and not be judgmental because she knows she raised you better.

She will confide in you. She will tell you things that you think you should not be hearing. But who else should tell you other than your mother?

She will make you do things you do not feel like doing. Like sending you to the kitchen every ten minutes to boil her cinnamon concoction or bring her a fruit. And you will oblige because, I mean, why would you not? You might delay. She might say something like obedience is better than sacrifice. And it will haunt you. And you will try your best to do it better next time. I mean, she has not even chased you out of her house yet you are 25?! 😀

She will look at a phone with her arm stretched as far away from her eyes as possible, because she is not as young as she used to be. She knows it. You know it. We all know it. You are not as young as you would like to think you are too. You are growing old. Soon enough, it will be your turn at motherhood or fatherhood. I hope I will be as good a mother as my mum. And I pray that she lives long to see me live to be the mum she has always prayed for me to be.

6 thoughts on “Mum

  1. Ahh what a lovely post. Mothers are wonderful. I was hiking Mt. Longonot with friends today, but when I had told my mother about the plan a few days ago, she said, “No, you are going to fall down the crater.” I used to think she just likes messing my plans, but I realized it’s one of her ways of showing love. You’re a baby forever, coz mums never stop being mums. Happy Mother’s day to yours!

  2. This has to be the best post from you I’ve read. It made me call my mum “just to check up on her”. She thought there was something wrong because of the emotion in my voice. Then she made me promise to eat fruits after lunch. Lol.

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