Proverbs 17: 22 “A merry heart does good like medicine but a broken spirit dries the
bones”
The loss of a parent is never an easy thing to go through no matter how old you are.
Loosing a mother like mine is distinctly heart wrenching because she filled our lives with sparkle and color, all wrapped up in endless laughter no matter the circumstances. While the grieving and healing journey is very slow and excruciating, the memory of her humor brings laughter amidst ugly tears and snorts. Mama was funny in many ways. Humor is one trait that I intimately shared with her every
chance I got. When I saw something hilarious, the first person I would call was mama because she would laugh until she was out of breath! Mama and I could laugh our way out of any problem. She was shy, but very observant. She would notice things that other people don’t easily notice and then she would recount her observations and laugh for a long time. Laughter carried her through so many tough
times and situations. She found joy in simple things even amidst some very difficult
periods of her life.
She had 11 daughters and stood by their side when they became mothers themselves. She was the first to hold our babies, and she bathed them often with funny comments the weirdness of their newborn’s faces and expressions. One time she stared at my infant son and said that he looked like some random angry ‘Munyarwanda’ on the streets of Kigali. When my baby yawned, she called out to me to come quickly and feed the wide-mouthed creature before it ate her alive. She did not want to be devoured and would say that we needed to start growing new crops to feed that baby because no one could afford to buy enough for him!
She often narrated stories of how she had many of her children in quite hilarious ways; she truly had the ability to make you feel special even when she would tell you that you were born on the road to Itojo hospital in Western Uganda! She had such easy births that by the eighth or ninth baby it was as easy as sneezing and thereafter the babies were just walking out! She said some of her babies were born at home, some on the way to the hospital and some in some random places that I can’t risk naming for fear of being persecuted. Just keep in mind that some of my siblings who are cute and amazing at the moment might have been born in some strange places. I was one of those privileged to be born in an actual hospital in the presence of a doctor! Ordinarily, one would think this was a happy story about my entrance into this word! Nope! As the 12 th child, I apparently was such a huge baby
that they could not risk doing the usual stunts (sneezing) with me at home. In addition, they were expecting a cute little boy after a line of estrogen-filled babies in the house. So according to Mama, when they placed me in her arms and announced the news that it was ‘the usual’, she looked down at this 5kgs of human flesh and I apparently looked glaringly up at her with an evil smile and a ‘good-for-you’ expression on my face! Aaaah, this makes me feel very special.
We would organize wrestling matches with my sister Maria and Mama. Whoever subdued the other had a right to tickle them until one asked for forgiveness. Maria and I always overpowered mama and tickled her to tears while laughing! Then she would get up and say “Askyee iz’ ingegera” (There is no appropriate English translation that would do this expression justice. A feeble attempt to do so would
yield “Go away, you mischievous scoundrels!”).
Mama was very prayerful. She prayed for all our husbands. She, like all of my sisters, would participate in the dating/courtship process of any of us. She was part of decisions about what to say to a potential suitor, what to wear, what time to be home (it was always 6pm) so basically, there was no going out at night. One time, one of my sisters was in the dating phase and she liked to talk on the phone for a long time at night. She would sneak to the living room when everyone went to bed since there was no privacy anywhere else in the house. Mama would stand in the corridor with genuine concern and she would wonder aloud “Is that child of mine speaking to demons?” or “Is this a child of darkness?” After the turbulent times of courtship, when anyone finally announced that they were getting married, Mama would come up with a new name for the son-in-love. She would only use those
names with us at first then as time went on, the big-mouthed sisters would tell their husbands what mama called them. She called some Seruceke, Cyabahungu, Yosefu, Francois, Rubyogo, Rwabihunda, Mzee, Rwaserera, Rugizerute, to name but a few! When she endeared them, she called all of them Nkeragutabara (the name of her father). She called everyone she loved by this name. Then when anyone misbehaved, they would go back to being called Rwaserera!
She kept a really fun contact list in her phone book. There was a phone number of a guy called Ibyatsi (Grass). This was the guy who brought grass for the cows at home. There was another called Umuti this means medicine. One lady was recorded as umusatsi (hair), it was the lady who did her hair. Other entries in her phone included ibitaka, amatafari, urubingo or indushyi (soil, bricks, reeds,
or the indigent respectively). She one time contracted a guy to repair the brick wall where the cows lived. This guy’s one foot was visibly bigger than the other one. Mama loved him and insisted on feeding him before he started his work. She would give him a giant glass of milk and force him to eat to get strength. One time she handed me her phone and asked me to call him for something. Mama was unbelievable; she had recorded him as Ikirenge (Foot) in her phone. Remembering all this makes me miss mama so much but also brings me gratitude for her full life, which was filled with laughter even through tough times.
Mama emphasized the importance of dressing modestly and decently. She had to approve everyone’s outfit before stepping out the door. She especially did not like anything that exposed the chest or went above the knees. She used to hear us talking about tops that showed cleavage and would sternly warn that good Christian women should not go around showing their “Clambaje”(read “cleavage”). In
addition to warning against “Clambaje” she hated anyone with flatulence that chose to sit near her! If you had anything to expel in the way of gas, you had better stay away from Mama! If you did not have anything nice for her to hear, she did not want anything from your rear. She had the ability to come up with new words to describe how God will not admit us in heaven if we keep such stinking conduct. Oh how I miss Mama!
As her health started deteriorating, she would often laugh at how parts of her body were misbehaving and not collaborating with each other. Sometimes her feet would disobey her and if she said go to the right, apparently the foot would defiantly move to the left. The body parts clearly had communication issues where some would even disappear without informing others where they went. She liked to sit on her folded legs, and sometimes the leg would go numb and she would call everyone and announce that her ‘leg was lost’! She would promise money to whoever could find it and return it to her. Sometimes her sons-in-love would offer to help look for her leg. Finding the leg usually involved actually lifting her up and helping straighten her leg up! In the usual Rwandan culture, a son-in-law would never dare come this close to a mother-in- law, but our husbands were all so close to her that she never worried about them lifting her up to find the “lost” leg. Sometimes when we saw her start to
fold her legs to sit, someone would stop her and warn her that no one would help her find the leg if it got lost again.
Mama kept tabs on everyone and knew what we were all up to all the time. She was an avid newsreader and WhatsApp user, and kept us informed about world events. She would worry about the impact of Gadhafi on Rwanda or whether Ariel Sharon in Israel had finally died after many years in a coma. When there was a fire in California she would call Christine in Lancaster PA, to ensure that the fire had not reached her. When there was a hurricane on the East Coast of the US she would call
Zed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to advise her on how to avoid floods or come home immediately. When there were riots in Libya, she worried about Manzi and Annet in NY and would tell us to remind them to stay home and not get involved in violent protests. She prayed for our country and interceded for its leaders. I came to believe that mama’s prayers and laughter throughout the years sustained us all. As I grow older, I want to be just like mama.
I still can’t believe that these stories about Mama are only memories now. I’m grateful that my mother’s legacy of laughter lives on through us, and that, even in death, she still brings us joy when we remember her life. I’m thankful that she taught me the value of laughter and that joy is a choice we can make no matter our circumstances. I’m lifting up a glass in honor of Mama and I encourage you all wonderful readers to choose joy every day.
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