Reflections on Motherhood
Wadzanai Garwe
Global Leader | President FICSA | Speaker | Economist & Humanitarian Advocate
We have floods in the North of Italy that have caused dams to break and killed many largely elderly people who could not outrun the floods. I had no idea the flooding was apocalyptic until a phone call from my Mum at 08:40 a.m. yesterday. ‘Wadzi are you ok? I’m worried!’ I was confused coming out of a deep sleep and shaking off the fog. Worried? Why? Then my rational brain immediately came to life - ‘Where in Italy Mum? Did they say Rome?’ Then my eyes looked outside - it wasn’t raining then. It was overcast but no rain so I breathed a sigh of relief.
That phone call made my whole day. Firstly I had slept through my alarm and had a meeting at 09:00 so my Mum was my alarm clock. Secondly I laughed heartily with my Phillia Garwe because my immediate thought was if I were being carried away by a flood I could not answer my phone it would be under water. Thirdly I felt this huge bubble of love. It just rushed over me. 57 years on my Mum still loves me unconditionally and wants to protect her daughter.
I quickly got up showered and made it to my 09:00 meeting on time and smiling like a crazy person. The day was overcast and rainy, today is the same but my heart and my home felt like sunshine. That’s the reason mothers are special. They worry. They check in. They pray. They fret. They celebrate. They grieve. Above all they love unconditionally.
The reason Taffy L. Gotora’s profound post resonated so much with me is the quote she made. ‘When my Dad died I lost a parent. When my Mum died I lost a family!’ That sentence hit me like a ton of bricks because that sentence is deep. My eggs were in my grandmother before I was even envisaged. That’s how we get generational coding through dna. That’s how we have certain instincts we don’t even know and can tap into from birth. Shae’s eggs were in her grandmother my mother. So that is why when mothers die we lose a family. They take the generational coding in human form with them. Women are the bloodline. Only women can gestate and imprint to future eggs.
Reflections on motherhood carried to a higher level. Mothers are special. This is why I do not advocate becoming a mother until one is truly ready. Mothers have a profound effect on the trajectory of a bloodline. We were not cursed by God. With great power comes great responsibility. Our womb is prepared through puberty and the reminder to every girl and woman monthly is the blood that carries the bloodline and the genetic imprinting. In menopause women become even more powerful as they gain wisdom and they create the matriarchy.
This is not a post to diminish the role of fathers. It is celebrating mothers and women. We spend a lot of time lamenting injustices to women. As a Black woman and even more importantly an African woman we’re almost always at the bottom of the food chain in the socially constructed, manmade hierarchies and yet we hold the keys to the bloodline. We are the original gene pool. Only a mother truly understands the role our creator Musikavanhu plays in our lives, because only a mother gestates, carries, imprints and births a human being. If you want to understand the love the creator has for you just look at the unconditional love a mother holds for her children. Even people who commit the most heinous crimes have mothers who many times say ‘I tried to get him/her help. I knew something was wrong (serial killer)’. I cannot remember which documentary on a serial killer it was but the mother had tried so hard to get psychological help because her son lacked empathy and killed animals.
Greater love hath no woman. I challenge the assertion that God is male. It’s impossible either They are female or a combination that is neither male or female. They are definitely not a he.
I thank my Mum for loving me unconditionally. I know what love is and looks like because I was loved fiercely. I dress like a toddler because my Mum was so protective of me I missed some vital steps in the dressing myself stage. I still tuck my t-shirt into my pants because my Mum taught me to at 57. Celebrating love. Honestly to have someone on another continent worry about me is huge.
TGIF people and celebrate your Mums. I know there are some toxic Mums out there - I feel a great deal of compassion for them because they never knew unconditional love. Something interrupted their journey in love and turned them into monsters and their children have to change the genetic imprint because they have perverted the narrative.
Honour women! I end with a quote from an editor in Afghanistan Shadi Khan Saif - HOW CIVILISED A CULTURE IS DEPENDS ON HOW IT TREATS WOMEN https://www.fairplanet.org/.../how-civilized-a-culture.../
Statistician/Economist Food Losses at FAO
1 年I was just last night talking to my husband about the lifetime effect the teachings of a mother are and sometimes it is impossible to unlearn them. In our context my mother eats food with very little salt to no salt and I grew up knowing that food should be cooked with the most minimal salt possible, my husband constantly complains about this because he ends up adding salt to his food and he does not like it but no matter how hard I try, the food always comes out with barely any salt. This just made me reflect on so many other aspects of life and realized a mother's imprints are for life, so this teaches me as a mother to be very careful with the kind of lessons I teach my babies because they might never outgrow them.