Today is special in more ways than one

May 08, 2011 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Today is Mother’s Day, a day that is even more special than Valentine’s Day when people profess their love for each other. It is not that people are not professing their love today, but I can only assume that the loves are of two different types. English language is rather scattered and is often left to interpretation.
For example, in Hindi, there would be no doubt about the kind of love that differentiates Mother’s Day from Valentine’s Day. There is Pyaar and there is Mohabat. They both mean love in a sexual way. One is Hindi and the other is Urdu. Praim, however, is Hindi for love in a platonic way, the way one would love a mother or a brother or sister.
So there it is that today love will flow through the hearts of many as they remember their mothers. There are those who will do everything to convince their mother that they love them so much that nothing will ever come between them. It will matter not that their mother refused to spare the rod, the pot spoon and any implement that she could lay her hand on in times of anger. Those days are past and it will be all that we can do for the woman who slaved over us.
It never fails to evoke some emotion in me when I see mothers and sisters outside the Camp Street jail trying to make life a little more comfortable for someone who ran afoul of the law. I scarcely see fathers, and this may be the reason why Mother’s Day is far more popular than Father’s Day.
In the coming years there may no longer be Father’s Day, because mothers are in increasing numbers playing the role of the fathers. In politically correct language we speak of single parent households. It still boggles the mind that men can shun their responsibilities to the extent that many children cannot say that they know their fathers.
This may explain why the vast majority of pavement dwellers are men, why most of the people in senior citizens’ homes are men. They fail to command the pride of place in their children’s heart. And they all lament because loneliness in old age is a bitch.
The memories tend to flow at this time, as those of us who are fortunate to have mothers look back over the years and appreciate what this woman did. The frustrations must have been many, because when in poor homes there was precious little; it was to Mother that we turned when the pangs of hunger gripped. If the father was there he too looked to the mother for succor.
I happen to still have my mother around. Just a few days ago I was sitting with two of my sisters who enjoyed recounting the beatings I sustained at my mother’s hands. They say that I was no angel; that I was quick to steal the sugar, the fry fish, to refuse to do my domestic chores and to be the good son that all mothers want.
I don’t think that would have been entirely true because I was always the one to fetch the water, to sweep the yard, to run to the shop and to walk the miles to the market to help my mother sell on Saturdays.
I suppose I caused her patience to run out most times, especially those times when I had grown to the extent that I could outrun her and so leave her with her anger unfulfilled. But when I had to go into the world of work it was she who got up at about three on the morning of October 29, 1966 to ensure that I caught the five o’clock boat to Bartica.
Life was such that I did not know that I could have caught the Demerara ferry at eight and take the train to Parika and catch the same steamer. I shall never forget the look on her face as she saw her eldest child leaving the nest to go to a faraway place where she had never gone and certainly was not sure where it was.
She did say that Bartica had a reputation for rum drinking and loose women. She did come to Bartica eventually and found a long lost relative. She was there when I got married and eventually she got to love Bartica.
I am so much older now, and like the people who like to show off, I took my mother to dinner one night. We went to Sand Hills on Camp Street where Citizens Bank now stands. When the soup came as the aperitif, the woman knocked me down. “Adam, that is water. You could have given me the money you spent.”
Years later, I took to taking her out to dinner and giving her a small piece. Now she is so much older—all of 87. She came home for the holidays and I am taking her to dinner again. She declined my cooking which I am sure is better than what she would get at any restaurant. I am going to show her off.
I have grown way past the days when teenage boys were ashamed to walk with their mothers or to have her kiss him in public. I am going to enjoy every moment because I am not sure how many more Mother’s Days we will be spending together.
I am also going to invite everyone to make one phone call, if only to some lonely woman who once had her day in the sun. If we could afford it, let us take a little something to brighten her day. And if anyone calls me to wish me a happy Mother’s Day I am not going to get all homophobic and cuss. I would welcome the greeting because this day is as much mine as it is for all the mothers and some fathers who are bringing up their children singlehandedly.
And for the record, today would have been Dr Ptolemy Reid’s birthday. He would have been 92.

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