MY MOM FLEW TO HEAVEN

Sep 13, 2015 Features / Columnists, From the Diaspora

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By Ralph Seeram

“The little butterfly has flown”, that was how my sister broke the news of my mother’s death last week. It was not expected, due to a series of events the previous day. But I will write on it at a later date, when the series of events will be a lesson to all families.

For now I can’t seem to concentrate, so I will reprint an article I wrote for my mother for her 90th birthday last year September. Writing her eulogy was one of the most difficult tasks to complete.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank all friends, relatives and the hundreds of people who do not know me personally but never the less expressed their sympathy in so many ways. I thank you all.

Here is the reprint from last year.

90 YRS AND STILL GOING STRONG, I AM BLESSED MY MOTHER IS STILL ALIVE

The neighbour’s cow was dying, so the owner decided to call the businessman who supplied meat to the two hospitals in New Amsterdam– the New Amsterdam Hospital and the Mental Hospital as it was then known as.

My mother saw what was happening, and realized that the dying cow was going to be slaughtered and given to the patients and workers at the hospitals to eat. Forget about health inspection; the health inspectors were susceptible to bribes. Yes corruption is not an overnight thing in Guyana, it existed way back then.

Anyway, my mother intervened with some choice Guyanese language and told the businessman that her husband works at the hospital and “you are not going to feed my husband with the sick cow”. So intimidating she was that the businessman decided to abort the deal and left with a few cuss words of his own.

Throughout her life I have always known my mother to be very feisty, one who would take no nonsense from anyone– from politicians to customers in her shop. She was also a woman of great foresight.

She survived her two sisters and is regarded as the matriarch of the entire family. Her siblings, grand, great grands and great-great-grands, nieces nephews numbered almost 100 persons.

Beauty Soman or “Aunty Beauty” or Miss Beauty as she was known to all in Smythfield, New Amsterdam, was born at Blairmont estate in 1924. To say she is a remarkable woman with tremendous foresight will be an understatement. She is a very industrious woman who looked at every means to make money to maintain her brood of seven kids.

I recall her being a seamstress, rearing cows, pigs, and later chickens on a commercial scale, then on to a grocery store, all in Smythfield.

She probably had the distinction of having the first “kitchen grocery” in Berbice if not Guyana. She practically converted her kitchen upstairs into a grocery to the consternation of neighbours. Nothing was an obstacle to her; and she would climb any mountain to achieve her goal.

I think her great achievement was the establishment of Smythfield, New Amsterdam as it is known today. Most of the residents of Smythfield may not know its history. Smythfield was a coconut estate owned by George Kardar. The residents then used to pay a rent of $1.00 a month for the house lots on which they built their house. However the owner, Kardar, can also tell you to break your house and take it off the property if he so desires.

My mother realized this insecurity so she organized the residents into a Coop Society to buy out the house lots they lived on. She was a shrewd negotiator; the 52 residents paid a $1000 for their house lots, pay 25 per cent down, and the balance in 10 years, payable in simple interest instead of compound interest as is the norm. By the way a $1000 then was a lot of money.

What the owner of the estate did not know was that he was selling four house lots for $1000 and not one. My mother had seen the plan for extending New Amsterdam to Smythfield in an orderly development, known as the Barker Plan that is why today Smythfield is a planned development while next door Angoy’s Avenue (Cow Dam) is Guyana’s largest slum.

She was Secretary of the Smythfield Coop Society, while her husband was the President; yes no one else wanted the responsibility. Smythfield as it is today owes its existence to her. She was what would be described today as a community activist.

My mother had a lighter side also, sense of humor if you will. One day an irate mother came barging into her shop cursing about how my younger brother was “interfering” with her daughter (meaning they like each other). The “old girl” as we call her these days, told the woman “I only chain my sluts, not my bulls” and that was the end of the matter.

One time a male neighbor came and complained how our donkey, a stallion named “Saga Boy’, was making “love to his donkey”, a mare by the name of Jenny. My mother calmly asked him if he wanted his mare for himself. End of complaint.

Near to the end of Smythfield road was very secluded so it served as a lovers spot in the old days. One day this very pretty daughter of a prominent N/A businessman in her Berbice High School uniform decided to go to the lovers spot with her boyfriend. Too bad for them, my mother spotted them, finished her chores, went to the backyard and cut out a “black sage whip” went and interrupted the romantic rendezvous with a few lashes on the girl, asking her “Is this you parents send you to school for”?

In those days even a stranger can discipline you, and you dare not go complain to your parents, because it’s going to be “licks again”. Of course she ask me if I knew the girl’s parents. To save the girl from further humiliation, I told her I did not.

The “old girl” as I said, had great foresight. In the early 70’s she saw the political horizon for Guyana and decided to get her brood out of Guyana. She made her plans and by the 80’s they were all out of Guyana.

This weekend her brood including a lawyer, computer engineers, civil engineers, environmental engineers and an assortment of other university graduates, will pay tribute to her. Their success in education is due largely to her vision some 40 years ago. She had always stressed education, education, education.

Oh did I mention that I was the eldest of the brood, who felt the brunt of the discipline, who never saw ‘eye to eye” with her. Yes I was the “hard ears” and “own way” one. Yes I got shut out when I came home late at night, and slept under the bottom house. She had her house rules, follow them or leave if you think “you is a big man”. Later I decided I was a “big man” and left the home. Yes it was her way or the highway, but we all owe our success to her, to a ‘tough old bird” as I described her these days.

Ralph Seeram can be reached at email: ralph365@hotmail.comor on Facebook

 

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