May 12th - Happy Mother's Day!

I have never felt the excitement and euphoria that others have on Mother’s Day.  I didn't have to make a card or paper flowers in elementary school for a mother.

I have no idea what it is like to get hugged and kissed on Mother’s Day for making breakfast or a big fancy lunch or for just handing over that card and paper flowers.  You see my mother did not raise me.  I was raised by my father.  He did not appreciate being given any acknowledgement on Mother’s Day but in my mind I always said “Happy Mother’s Day, Daddy”.   With all that said, to my mother, Jeanne whether or not it was your master plan, I thank you for choosing to have me.   I see us as friends now and I enjoy the friendship.  To my father, John, I don’t know if I was part of your master plan nevertheless, I thank you for raising me.

I still have many to whom I wish Happy Mother’s Day.  There are so many who have touched my life in a motherly way that as I prepare to study for yet another examination, I take just a few minutes to recall  some of them and  acknowledge the influence they have had in my life.  Happy Mother’s Day ladies! 

Auntie Eileen who made me beautiful clothes that I truly did not appreciate, because I was a shy child and could not handle all the attention her beautiful clothes brought.  To Auntie Pearl, she would comb my hair without pulling and tugging each curly coil.  I still get sleepy whenever anyone combs my hair.  To Auntie Elaine and Iris:  they stretched themselves so much for all of us children of the clan Bernard.   Thank-you to Auntie Ursula who showed me how to make rag rugs and bedspreads from different bits of cloth, laughed a lot, clarified my thinking on many things about God and the Bible and church.

 Life in Canada started with Mrs. Barnard, who gave up her bed that first night me and my Dad arrived in Canada and she had never met us previously.  Tea and coconut biscuits always remind me of that fateful night.   I can never forget Diane, (Mrs. Barnard was her grandmother) who got me my first bra and told me about the menses.  Her generosity still continues to this day.  I received kindness from her stepmother, Kay and her mother Vivian too; they were like grandmothers to me.   I feel as if I am family to Diane, Kay and Vivian.  

Auntie Jean   took me into her home that first year in Canada and took care of me for a whole school year.  She made the best lemon loaf and chocolate chip cookies and to me she seemed so beautiful.  I remember that her sons and I always believed that she would never know that we had snitched a few cookies from the freezer every Saturday morning while we watched cartoons. (smile).  Thanks Auntie Jean for always keeping the freezer stocked.   Mrs. Beach who told me stories of her life on the Gold Coast of Ghana and taught me to make jello (yes, at nine (9) years old, you’ve got to be taught) and how to lay a table properly and always told me “stop saying you hate this and that, please”.   Anna-May, I could not love more for just being Anna-May.   I still make washing my dish towels as the last thing I do in the kitchen each day, taught by Anna-May to do that and also indirectly taught to find humour everywhere.  Janet my dear, dear stepmother who has always been different and with whom I fought quite a bit in the “getting to know you” years but who showed her love for me even more after my father died and when I truly needed a sense of stability.   Mrs. Sealy, Kathleen, who was the mother of my dear friend Erica.  She was a lovely lady, a nurse by profession, whom I would tease her by telling her that she would be the one who would deliver my babies.    I would tell her that I would climb up that hill just as I was due and my belly would be so big that she just could not send me back down the hill, she would have to deliver!  LOL we would together. 

My maternal Auntie Eletha,  now, not the lady I met when I was twenty-five (25)  years old  since age has affected the mind but still the lady  I remember who had this  great sense of humour, whose love for me showed, in her passion to ensure that no one hurt me.  To Vera, Nennie to us all “young ones”, who opened her home and her heart to me, just a friend of her niece, nothing more.  Nennie made me one of her own and even today, while she is not with us, her dear sister Aunt Eula treats me as one of the family and that is because of you, Nennie, (hope you’re listening from heaven) and your putting me in a shining light. 

The ladies of Rajnauth and Louis Streets cannot be forgotten.  These ladies who live across the street, obliquely opposite and behind me have also mothered me.  These are my neighbours and have been for twenty-six (26) years and I thank God for their support through all these years.  O’ the parties we’ve shared and the sorrow we have comforted each other through!  Gone but never forgotten is Mrs. Cordner, my grandmother, my mother, my friend.  I miss you dearly.  Thank-you for the hugs and love and ole talk and advice and laughter you brought into me.  We started off rocky and ended up on a smooth path.   Mrs. D, who really finds me a bit different but that has not stopped her from gently reminding me of Divine Order in everything, giving me the courage to go on.   I remember her sister, Sylvia, who made the best callaloo in the world and had no difficulty in me just passing her the ingredients and she would cook up a big batch just for me.  Raimunda who makes me a bun as she makes her weekly bread supply, insists I eat her homegrown bananas, “they very good, Jeannelle” (I don’t like bananas), and mangoes.  Raimunda, who keeps the spare keys for the house, will ensure that the gardener and the housekeeper, when I had one, get paid, does all my clothing repair,  makes great Spanish food, after all she is Spanish, I say Happy Mother’s Day to you!    Audia,   whom I have met just a few years ago, Happy Mother’s Day to you!   Who wishes the best for me, recognizes my tiredness and feeds me, sees my depression and hugs me, cajoles, humours me onto a different plan, who defends me against any that speak ill of me?  Audia R!  I remember you today and ask God to ease you through your current troubles

I know I have not written about everyone woman who has mothered me but that does not mean that their influence is not present in my life; in the nuances of my actions, I know they are there.  So I salute you dear women who have helped me throughout this life.  Happy Mother’s Day! 

We do not do it all alone, eh.  Live long enough and you too shall have a lot of “mothers  to thank.