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Your Mother is Just a Girl
Grappling with the concept of age as a fluid state of mind, Wendy has found herself perpetually anchored to a younger version of who she was, despite the inevitable march of time. Yet, amidst these reflections, she is consistently drawn to a deeper inquiry into her mother’s own journey through adolescence and womanhood. In this essay, she contemplates this legacy of motherhood, mortality, and identity.
As the pages of my story turn, I find myself in the same chapters my mother once lived. Growing older, I realise that the woman who raised me, with all her wisdom and strength, is just a girl. A girl who experienced the same rollercoaster of emotions, the same profound hurt and joy that I now navigate.
I read on Twitter (yes, I still call it Twitter, that’s the name his momma gave him!), about a feeling many people have. A feeling that they aren’t the age they are but an often much younger age simply living in that older person’s body. I, for example, feel like a 21-year-old living in a 25-year-old’s body – granted, this isn’t that much of a discrepancy but I am certain that I’ll be 35 and still feel 21. Although the body has an unneglectable way of reminding you of how old you are, I think age is a state of mind, or at least that’s what it has felt like for me.
I wonder what age my mother feels, I wonder who she was at 15, I wonder if we would have been friends if I wasn’t her daughter and we sat next to each other in school. There’s a story my mother told me once, about how death knocked on her dormitory door once upon a time, and that she didn’t think she would live to see the daughter she’d dreamed of. My grandmother tells me of a similar story, of her encounter with the cloaked-scythed man, of her sorrow at the life she would not birth.
I wonder if that is what I will see during my own confrontation with mortality. Is motherhood a long tale of existing as your own afterthought?
I could simply ask my mother all of this and avoid the tedium of meditating on pen and paper. In fact, as I write this, my mother and grandmother are in the next room; chatting, laughing, radiating. But I am afraid the unequivocal answer will be yes.
I dreamed once, of my mother’s ascension to heaven, I awoke in a flurry of tears and all I had – some 400KMs away from her hug – was a poem.
Yejide
Image of my mother
Yejide, are you proud of what I became despite the lack of tender touches and laying on of hands?
Yejide, are you glad your daughter pulled herself from anything that could be love but would definitely be war?
Yejide, are you gathering the angels to show them how glorious your child is?
Yejide, are you going to hug me, carry me into your arms and swing me as you once did when I join you?
Yejide, are you saving my spot in heaven, next to Aunty who chews too loud and Cousin who talks too much? (Just like you did at every family wedding)
Yejide, I am ready to be carried away now
Yejide, I am ready to die
Adanne
Mother’s daughter
Adanne, you were made for things far greater than the acknowledgement of your mother and the nudging of a man. But if I must tell you, then yes, I am proud.
Adanne, you hid under tables every time your father was displeased with me, covering your ears. Praying yourself away. I am glad your prayers took you far. I am glad you stayed there.
Adanne, the angels have not had a chance to rest since I arrived.
Adanne, even heaven is a little less heaven without you here. A hug will be only the beginning of our reunion.
Adanne, they all miss you dearly, of course.
Adanne, I have always been ready to carry you.
Adanne, my daughter, you are ready to live.
All this wondering has brought me here, in front of a mirror that looks like her. I am the firstborn daughter, and apparently, all firstborn daughters look like their fathers. This has been true of me for most of my life but is becoming less and less apparent as I age. Weird. As my face transforms into hers, so does my being. I am becoming my mother. I think many women do eventually become their mothers.
How you choose to receive this not-so-breaking news is up to you, but I have decided to embrace it. My mother is just a girl, but good God; what a girl.