Of woman power

This would have to be for my mother.

She has had the kind of life which has been the kind that novels are written about. I still have to gather the courage to write about her.

She lost her mother when she was just three. And her brother two. Her father married again. To a woman who treated her like the proverbial stepmothers do, like the maid servant of the house. Her stepmother went on to have her own brood of children.

My mother studied, did the housework, grew up. Trained as a teacher. Her father passed away, she took on the mantle of supporting her brothers and sisters. Married when she was in her thirties to my father. It wasn’t a very happy marriage. Enough said. She wouldn’t like me to say more. My father died when she was 42. She had no home, no money and nowhere to go. And me to support. She picked herself up and began taking tuitions to make ends meet. She got a job on compassionate grounds at the bank my father worked at and staff quarters. I grew up. I got married. I moved out. She bought herself a little flat and lives there alone now. She’s 73. Cheerful. Busy. Runs her home on her own. Without even a top servant for the vessels or the sweeping swabbing.

Everytime I see her, I am humbled. And grateful that I was born to a woman like her who might not be famous, or well to do, but has such indomitable strength of spirit that I have no choice but to walk in her footsteps and bolster my own.

Edited to add: And this post won me a mug. Maybe I’ll give it to mom.