Mum’s The Word


A Mother's love knows no bounds. (Photo credits to Chen Su Yin)

"Motherhood, in its ultimate sense, has nothing to do with bearing a child, but with love, compassion and selflessness. It lies in totally giving to others." - Amma

Mum, mother, mummy, mama, mak, amah, ummi, amma … it’s all the same person. The person who takes the most heat and the most flak. And the person whom everybody, and I mean literally everybody, takes for granted … sigh!

Amma who is a Hindu spiritual leader, is Mata Amritanandamayi; India’s ‘hugging saint mother’, which literally means ‘Mother of Absolute Bliss’. She was born to the Arayan caste family in a poor fishing village of Parayakadavu (now partially known as Amritapuri), near Kollam, Kerala in 1953. Amritanandamayi who was born Sudhamani, began hugging devotees at an early age. Thus, she is said to have hugged at least 21 million people in the past three decades.

In the 1980’s, Amma founded her ashram to receive followers and offer them her healing hugs. For this and all her contributions, she was awarded the Ghandi-King Award for Non-violence in 2002. Today she heads a global spiritual empire (amritapuri.org).

Amah on the other hand means ‘little mother’. These were the maidservants recruited directly from China to work in Singapore and Malaya in the 1930’s. They were dressed in white tunics, black trousers and had long beautiful braided hair. They cooked, cleaned and looked after the children of their wealthy employers.

Many of these women often belonged to sisterhoods that pledged them to spinsterhood and often stayed with a family till old age. In all appearances, they were the domestic help; but more than not, they were the ones who ruled the household.

Now who does not know of Mother Teresa: the famed nun from Albania who did charity work. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910; she devoted herself to working among the poor in the slums of Calcutta and started her own order: The Missionaries of Charity.

For her various charity work, Mother Teresa received a number of awards and distinctions, that included the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), the Nehru Prize (1972) and the Nobel Peace prize in 1979, just to name a few (nobelprize.org)

Amma, amah, Mother Teresa, are some of the renowned mothers of the world. My own mother does not even come close to them; but to me, she is the best. Mum is always understanding and willing to lend an ear whenever anything goes wrong.

I recall one incident. Years ago, I was on the school hockey team during my secondary school days. My mum could not understood why I indulged in the sport since I always came home with injuries – swollen ankles, blue-black shin bones and even bruised shoulders. This normally happened when teammates missed the small tar gait hockey ball and took a swipe at the upper body instead. Ouch!

She never understood why ten players on each team went chasing after a small hockey ball on a big field. It is not that she did not understand the game per se; she just could not comprehend why I picked up such a ‘manly’ sport.

She told me this one night while putting a hot towel on my swollen ankle, “Don’t do it to impress anybody, do it because you feel good doing it. Just because your father used to play it, it doesn’t mean you have to.” I just gave her a somber look. She continued “… and giving it up will not be easy, especially since you’re good at it”. That’s like a double edged sword, isn’t it?

So although Mum and I had our strained moments; we could always to talk each other about everything; well almost everything. She even enjoyed my dirty jokes …However, when it came to matters of the heart, I would try to avoid Mum as she could see right through me and read me like a book; which is not good indeed.

Recently, I was having lunch with one of my colleagues, Stella. We were chatting about work and family matters.  I asked her about her MBA and she just sighed. I asked her about her kids and she gave me an even longer sigh. She said “You know how people always say that kids are God’s gift. Well, some days I wish I could give them back to God and ask him to help babysit”. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Yes, I know exactly what you mean Stella.

Yes on certain days, coming back from a long day at the office, all you want to do is to relax and unwind. But no, nothing doing as you can hear the kids’ raised voices fighting in the background. Reading for relaxation would be out of the question; what more marking assignments.

Sometimes you find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again because of the commotion. Asking them to tone down or to keep quiet would obviously fall on deaf ears. So why even bother? Mum always asks me where they get that attitude, since I was not like that when I was their age. Obviously, they take after their father...

Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong. Mum says that, it is not what I did wrong, it is just this generation of kids – they don’t listen, don’t feel, don’t care.  So one on of her visits, she spoke to my kids. She told them to behave and to help around the house more often. I did not mind her advising them. But it was what she said after that, that gave me a shock.

She said “If you continue to be stubborn and fight all the time, your mother might just die young. And then where would you be? You see the dramas on TV with kids losing their mothers and ending up at the orphanage because they have no one. You don’t want to be like them, do you?” Well that’s my mother for you... a bit eccentric but with good intentions, no doubt.

So these days when she comes a visiting and the kids start their routine, I turn to her and say, “It’s okay Mum, for as long as they don’t kill each other, we’re fine”. She will just give me this amazed look and laugh with me. Yes, I have come to that stage in my life. For as long as I do not see blood, we are good.

For us mothers, we always have our ‘war’ stories to tell. But no matter how bad it is, always look on the bright side: we still have them to drive us up the wall or to give us joy and to give us the highs and lows of our life. For those who do not have kids; either by choice or other reasons; well, I cannot even begin to comprehend or appreciate what their life is like.

But in Islam, we believe God will give when we are ready. The time will surely come for future mothers to receive their gifts from God. Till then persevere and be patient.

So what did you get this mother’s day? Cake? Presents? Jewellery? You are lucky if the kids even just behave!

As mother’s, we do not ask for much. Actually we do not even ask for anything at all: just for them to do well in their studies and to turn out okay. However, some peace and quiet at other times would be bliss too! Is that too much to ask?

I guess what really made my day on the 10th of May was when one of my international students sent me a text message wishing me Happy Mother’s Day. It is either he misses his own mother dearly or he sees me as the next best thing to her. And that, meant the whole world to me... Thank you Krobo!
     
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