You forgot your mother's🤰🏽 prayers!

Friends, a Mothers’ Day special.

Often in African homes, prayer is an essential part; or should I say religion. Whenever someone in the family is traveling, or relocating, or just going far away from home for a while, our mothers have to put them in the hands of the Deity before embarking on the journey.
A hilarious phrase from the Luo tribe, whenever a prayer is uttered for one travelling, is that ‘Wakwayi Ruoth, ni irite kuom gik ma ochwe gi lwet dhano..’ 
Translation: [We ask you Lord, that you protect him (the one traveling) from things made by the hands of man (referring to cars😂)]. I guarantee you no Luo prayer involving a journey is offered without these words, wherever it may be😂.

Such things, though hilarious, are part of reasons why we truly adore our African mothers.

Right from childhood, the respect accorded to mothers is vivid. A suckling child grows fond of the mother’s eyes, the mother’s voice, the mother’s scent, and the mother’s touch, right from the first breastfeeding. And over time, even if the distance between the child and the mother grows, the child can never forget that voice. It knows it all too well.

Mothers, at least in African homes, are not only feared but adored. The respect accorded them is above nothing else. The mother is the first response. If something’s troubling a child, he/she runs to the mother first. If the decision is too serious, then the father is involved.

The mother knows all children by name, by age, by date of birth, by friend group, by class, by teachers, by doctor, by the school bus driver. The father (and I mean no disrespect at all) is there to know he has a son or daughter, nothing much😂. But the mother, no matter the multitude of children, will know them all by their very minute details.

A hilarious thing I adore about African mothers, is their mode of doing things. Oh man, now that we’re older it’s so funny. Our mothers would have us doing some never before seen Tae-Kwon-Do positions as they bathed us in the glaring heat of the sun. Then instead of drying us off with a towel, they would air us out in the sun to dry, like we were some maize from the farm!! They would then smear us with so much body oil that any water in contact with us thereafter would trickle down our body without us getting wet at all. Oh, and dare you get dirty after that thorough scrubbing! You’d be flogged to sleep, literally.

And the trick we all fell for? Where she would hide one slipper with one hand at her back, and with the other hand lure you to come grab whatever was in the other hand. She would slowly fish you in with enticing words of ‘sitakuchapa ata, we kuja’ [I won’t beat you, just come grab this.] Immediately you were within reach she would pounce on you, literally like a predator on a prey. Cat instincts, or mother instincts👀? Similar thing to me😂.

Speaking of instincts, you would always notice how when one of her children is in imminent danger her instincts kick in, often faster than the father’s, and rescue the kid often before it is too late. I don’t know, but that always seemed cool to me. Some sort of “spidey sense”. Especially for animal mothers like cats and chicken.

Funny enough, no matter how bad the situation at home ever was in terms of money or riches, or no matter how bad our moms flogged us half to death for very tiny mistakes, or the fact that they’d never tell you they love you - matter of fact, they’d tell us how much ‘tumewajogo’ [we annoy them]. No matter all this, we love them dearly. Never would any child wish to see a tear on their mothers’ eyes. Even happy tears sometimes make the child cry too. The merciless ‘discipline’ has never been mistaken for no love. The financial condition of the home never made the affection grow dimmer, matter of fact it makes most offspring want to work even harder to turn their mothers’ situation around.

Ever wondered why it is said “Mommy we made it!” and not dad?

I know of many people, who whenever they’re about to give up on life e.g. in education, they remind themselves, “Let me just finish this properly, even if just for mom!” Then they get back up on that horse and attack the task at hand.

Our mothers have always been hustlers. Fighters, not strugglers. Beaten down to pulps yet arise stronger than before. They stop at nothing, not even their own lives, to ensure their kids get the best of what they themselves couldn’t have.

This little reminiscing, is dedicated to all wonderful mothers, alive or passed, who have shaped our lives to who we are today, and what we are yet to become. We are destined to be great, coz despite all odds our mothers are great. They are living proof of the tenderest love, passed down from one soul to the next, without any filter.

What mother’s memory do you have? Please hit the <reply> button and let me know🙂.

Nothing beats giving life!

Nothing beats motherhood!

Do not forget your mother’s prayers when you left home to go look for ‘greener pastures’, or left to live your own life now.
She didn’t pray for an alcoholic child.
She didn’t pray for an abusive, rude, unmannered child.
She didn’t pray for an adulterous child.
She definitely didn’t pray for a lazy child after all the years she spent arching her back in labour and toil to provide whatever’s best for you.
She didn’t pray for an unbelieving child.
She didn’t pray for a girl who is now thinking she’s a boy, or vice versa.
She prayed for her daughter. She prayed for her son.

Do not forget your mother’s prayers!

✍🏽Quote of the Week

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1. The shortcut is probably too long🥱 - I am prone to a particular kind of self-deception, where I believe there’s a shortcut or compromise that works for me and not others. It’s like a gold mine, this secret of actually doing things the recommended way, and not your way.

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Have a wonderful week ahead!

✍🏽Reagan.