TO MY MOTHER

A LOVE Letter To My Mother (& Maybe Yours Too)

My father passed away a few years ago & that came with, laying to rest (no malicious pun intended) the broken relationship that never really was through facing the advance stages of learning to forgive without any of the many sorries and accountabilities that were well overdue. During this process, many new (but really more of the same) incidents transpired & although, I did my outmost best to keep extending grace & forgiveness to him, in my pain, I was furious with my mother for choosing wrongly & then not only staying with wrong but having another child (me) with a man who not only was cruel to her (even at the depths of her lowest) but was later unrelentingly cruel to the children they’d created when they needed him the most out of his sheer hate for her. During those tear-filled nights of a daughter who just wished her parents had been better, I realised then that, I needed to also forgive my mother for who she couldn’t be so I did and this letter is the result of that.

My late dear mother, Victoria Yaa Ageiwaa (Ei-Jay-Waa) lived a short life, she passed away before aged 40 after a battle with an illness which was exacerbated by a broken heart from my father’s many betrayals. My limited memories of mum are ones of a mother who was desperate to beat her illness for her childrens’ sake and to perhaps, bare witness to a future, better than what we were enduring. I safeguard these memories as a reminder and a motivator that I am her legacy and as such, feel entrusted to be the best version of myself, which ultimately was the best of her.

My late Mama, Victoria Yaa Ageiwaa in Ghana before I was born

If I could sit down for a face-to-face, woman-to-woman and best of all, mother to daughter conversation with my dear mother, Yaa Agyeiwaa, I’d want her to know that I am proud of her, for doing her best with her lot in life. For her best ensured my survival and planted fruitful seeds of many tomorrows.

I would assure her that her wisdom, hope and perseverance orchestrated a magnificent symphony of restoration for the things we have lost, both the ones that we endured through public scrutiny and the battles, fought behind closed doors and only witnessed by tear-drenched pillows.

I would want her to know that her mistakes although temporarily really painful with reverberating consequences, plowed plaines of rocky grounds earthed in rich soil, the kind where only rare and fragrant roses bloom leaving their admirers to marvel at the courage of a simple seed to pull from the deep. My zest for life, courage to stand for truth and justice, tenacity to flourish in all necessary conditions and, creativity are ample testaments of this.

I would want her to be cocooned by my joy. A joy that beams from the depths of grace-fueled triumphs which is intended not just for me but for her also, to help illuminate all of her dark-filled days when she worried that her best wasn’t enough and questioned, what would become of me in her absence.

I would want her to know that, I’m doing my best to shut the doors of her pain and those who came before her by living intentionally, facing my fears and going to therapy to create new paths that can illuminate the paths of those to come after me should they choose fit.

I would want her to know that, I hear her and in doing so, I accept these things as truths for my life too. For I am her and she is me; a woman doing her best to thrive.

“Compassion is, by definition, relational. Compassion literally means "to suffer with," which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.” - Kristen Neff