Motherhood with Aiidee – More than a mothers love

Timi, a young student of mine had been moody for days. I tried consoling him and encouraging him to go home for the Christmas break. He refused. He wanted to spend the holiday in the hostel. To him, he preferred the boarding house to going home.

It won’t happen in our days. Never!!! I thought as I walked away from his room. While I was in the boarding school, I looked forward to every break with great anxiety and daily prayer to God to fast-forward the time that looked or seemed too slow.

Back then our seniors were “tin gods” dreaded cult “and venerated” like a god. The slogan “366 days is not a joke” was a creed cherished and delivered with pride with seniors who are just a year ahead of us. Beyond the fear and dread of “seniorhood”, the poor food and hard labour were nothing to write home about.

However, all hope was not lost. Our open day and the visiting day was like a drop of water in a desert. My mom never missed a single one. She would come with plenty provisions and a special “Tinko” (dry meat) in a sauce. A homemade rice and stew which taste always lingered for weeks! But of all her visits, one will linger on for years till I go home…

It wasn’t our open day or visiting day, just an ordinary day with nothing to signal her coming. I had gone to “Omi iye” stream to fetch water for my senior after school hours. I had barely walked for ten minutes on my way back, barefooted, when I saw a figure at our school gate. It was my mom.

Initially, she was speechless as if it was not her daughter standing in front of her. I was looking unkempt. I carried one bucket on my head and another on my tiny, fragile right hand. Water was dripping from the one on my head to my body. My cloth stuck to my body like a second skin.

“Where is your shoe?”

“Why are you carrying two buckets?”

“Who sent you?”

Questions upon questions! Endless! A senior took my slippers and my undies and threatened that if I reported her, she will frustrate me. “I managed to reply her tearfully”.

Though I was soaked, she gave me a bear hug that drained all my pains and frustrations. “Enough is enough. I am coming to see your principal with your dad during the week” she vowed as she took the bucket from me and walked to my hostel.

Her visit was brief. She said she was coming from Seventh-day Adventist school of Nursing in Ife to see my senior sister. She insisted seeing this senior, but I pathetically pleaded with her to avoid more wrath when she must have gone. Reluctantly she agreed.

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While waiting for a cab at the gate of my school, my mom did the unusual and unexpected. She pulled her flat shoe and ordered me to wear it. I bluntly refused. “No mom. Please, you did not come with your car” I pleaded. How will a rich woman, a leader in the church and community walk barefoot? I pondered.

My mom persuaded, and persisted. While we were still arguing, “she flapped a cab, jumped inside it, waving and smiling at me. Pew, she was gone-barefooted. I stood in awe looking at the flat brown shoes for ages…Tearfully and gratefully, I slipped my tiny feet’s into them. With so much pride I walked majestically into my hostel.

It’s close to forty years now, but it looks like yesterday. Though my mom had gone to rest for more than twenty-four years, yet I can’t forget this show of love. What will mothers not do for their children? They are irreplaceable gifts from God. No wonder, when God talks about agape love in the Bible, mother’s love for her children were used as graphic examples.

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee (Isa 49:15)”.

Wow! I think most mothers have a deeper understanding of the above verse. If there is any love greater than that of a mother to her children, it is the love of God. It is soothing, it is a healing balm, it is indispensable and unconditional. God’s love? It is incomprehensible and incomparable.