My mum was the first of 8 children and as such she carried the weight of being a first born, which in a lot of African families means once she was financially able, she had to do best she could to support her siblings. So not only was she taking care of us, her immediate family but she also took care of her extended family. Her parents and her siblings looked up to her for everything, from financial and material support to information on available jobs wherever she saw or heard about them. With two sisters and five brothers, let’s just say it was never easy. Expectations were had left and right and while sometimes wildly unrealistic, she was expected to meet them. She was almost solely responsible for my grandmother who lived in the village (while my grandfather lived in Mombasa with another woman…… oh boy, another story there), she ensured my grandma was well taken care of. It is because of her close relationship with her mother that we developed a close bond with our grandmother.
Her industrious nature meant that by the time I was a teenager, my mom decided she wanted to build her own home. She no longer wanted to live in the estate housing that her work provided because she wanted to build and be proud of her own home.
I do not think I fully appreciated what that meant at that time, all I knew was my family was moving from the only home I had ever known to a new neighborhood that was unfamiliar to me, albeit less than a 20 minutes’ walk away. And for the first few holiday vacations I had from school, I would walk to my old home and hang out with my friends there. I would not be bothered to make friends in my new neighborhood. That flew for only so long until my mom insisted that I try to make friends in my new hood. We moved into the house while it was still being constructed and she made it come alive like only she could. It took blood sweat and tears but eventually she had a home she was proud of and always dreamt of expanding. She never did get that chance but that home still stands and though in need of some repairs, it is a testament to her tenacity
The sacrifices that she made for us, big and small still bring a smile to my face to date. The way she would make sure we had everything we needed before spending a dime on herself. She would wear a pair of shoes until it was worn out before getting a new pair just so she didn’t waste money. I don’t remember her having mani pedis, salon was to get her hair done, nails were done at home. The way she would not miss a single event at my or my brother’s school. How she would walk two kilometers to my boarding school gate on my birthday just to bring me a birthday cake and wish me happy birthday. How she would drop everything at a moment’s notice for us, how when I left my home town and went to the capital city she called me every single day to check in on me, or how she helped my brother search for a hostel, walking for miles with us when it was my brother’s turn to join university. Or how when she came for visiting day when I was in boarding school she would ask “mrembo wangu yuko wapi?” which translates to “where is my beautiful one?”. So many of my friends envied me and told me that I had the best mum ever. And I did. I am glad that I have so many good memories of her. It is her gentle way of touching every single person she came across that drives me to do the same.
My mum also had a keen eye for fashion and while she didn’t spend much on it, she made sure she always looked presentable. She used to say people will judge you first from the moment they see you based on how you are dressed before any words come out of your mouth, so make sure the impression is the one you want to make with what you are wearing. My mom would see an outfit somewhere and the next time she was at the tailor’s she would redraw the outfit, tweaking a small part of it and making it into her own, like changing the sleeves or the waist line and so on and it always turned out so wonderfully. All my friends and neighbors used to comment at how good she always used to look. This is one of the trickiest lessons I ever learnt from my mom, on one hand, I am, to date, pretty much a conservative dresser and I do believe it is important to dress how you wish to be perceived. A lot of people would disagree with me but I still see the validity of the lesson. But on the other hand, while it is important to look sharp on the outside, I do not feel like she ever taught me to look after myself on the inside. How to self-examine, self-evaluate and self-care, which is what part of this blogging journey is for me. See my mom did it all with such grace. It was rare to hear my mom complain and when she did, she would quickly make it seem like it’s not too big of a deal.
My mother smiled through everything and always made it seem alright even though often, it wasn’t. Because, you see this woman I just described, was also a victim of domestic abuse. My father beat my mum to a pulp more times than I care to remember. He didn’t need a reason, as long as he was drunk and felt that he had a reason, he did. I remember a couple of times, us moving out of the family home as she sought to run away from him and him coming back begging and us coming back home again. Too many times, my brother and I would be awakened in the middle of the night by sound of my mom screaming and him hitting. Many times, she ran into our bedroom, (sometimes the bathroom or toilet) to escape him and my childhood home was filled with doors and walls with damage and cracks from where he would try to force it open. When he was in a rage, it was like he morphed into something else. This almost constant fear meant that I was a bed wetter until I was almost a teenager. I did not know it then but one of the causes of bed wetting is fear in children. On the flip side, because home was so chaotic, I excelled in primary school, I had a drive that propelled me to want to control at least that one aspect in my life. That meant I was always in the top 5. How do I know this was the motivator? Because when I went to Boarding school for my Secondary Education, away from that situation, my interest in education dropped drastically. I lost almost all my drive. Many times, I would scream and cry begging him to stop, other times I would run into the balcony screaming for neighbors to help us but no one ever came. I don’t remember how many times I was sure he would kill her that day, luckily that never happened at that time. But it is the effects of that violence that would eventually lead to a myriad of health issues; from deafness in one ear, bruised ribs, and eventually the cancer that would take her life.
The Musings of a Wandering Mind 