Mummy ... In Memoriam!

In all honesty, while growing up, I was never that close to my Mom. I was always Daddy's little girl and Mummy was merely a presence, whose connection to my life I took for granted just because she was my mother and nothing more. Little did I realize how she had influenced me oh so subtly through the inexorable passage of time. My feelings for Mummy changed when I became a mother myself, and these random thoughts in my very first blog are in honor of Mercy Samuel, my beloved mother, who passed away in February of this year.

My mother was an educator who retired as the head teacher of a high school. She also happened to have a love for Shakespeare, and having read Twelfth Night while she was carrying me, her youngest child, it was no wonder then that I was promptly named after Shakespeare's heroine, something quite unheard of in the part of the world where I grew up! Mummy was defined by her deep-seated religious convictions, and every single day started and ended with a prayer, right till the very end of her life. My earliest recollection is of my mother singing a hymn at dawn each day while we children were drifting in and out of sleep, her soft, melodious voice signaling to us that daybreak was near. Family prayers were a daily occurrence and weekly church attendance was a given in those days. When I was two years old, Mummy taught me how to say grace before a meal, something I continue to say till this very day. "Dear Jesus," the prayer goes, "thank you for this food. Bless all that I eat and strengthen me. Amen." Need I say that this is what my son says now as well!?!

I was my mother's fifth child and she used to tell me how God had listened to her prayers and given me, after her fourth baby, a girl, had died under tragic circumstances. She used to say I was the result of her penance and pleading to God on her knees, after a number of miscarriages she had suffered. Religion, as my mother taught it, was OK with me, but as a child, I used to be annoyed when she called me home for prayers while I was playing with my friends on the street. "Oliviaaaaaa...," she would call out, and the other kids would go, "Your mother's calling...Time for prayer!" Everyone living on our street knew that without a doubt!

I studied in the same school that my mother was head teacher of, and I was one of the students in the very first batch that graduated from it. In all my years at school, never once did I go to my mother asking her to speak to my teacher because I hadn't done my homework or hadn't brought a textbook. Mummy would never like it, I knew. I had to be responsible for myself, I was told, and I did my best to excel in everything and make my mother proud. In fact, I steered clear of her at school and never went anywhere near her office or classroom. When I got the first rank in class and showed my progress report to her at home, her comment would be, "It's no surprise to me that you got the first rank. The real surprise would be if you didn't get it." This was her way of appreciating me, of showing how much faith she had in me. But of course, on a rare occasion or two, I've heard her brag to an aunt or an uncle, "Unlike other mothers, I never have to tell my daughter to study. She does an exemplary job on her own!"

My mother was such a conscientious person who never called in sick to work or took a day off. None that I knew of! The same was true when I ranked first at university in my undergraduate program and received the gold medal from the Governor of my state... Mummy promptly went to work even on that day, much to my disappointment. The teachers at her school were outraged..."Mrs. Samuel, how could you do such a thing? Why did you come to school? Shouldn't you have attended your daughter's graduation?..." they went, and it was only then that my mother realized her mistake and recognized how disappointed I must have been. She did come home and apologize to me. It's another story that I went on to get a gold medal in my graduate program and yet another one in my pre-doctoral program, and Mummy was there on both occasions, cheering me from the stands!

Mummy had a heartfelt love for nature. The year that she spent with me in California opened her up to the natural wonders and beauty of this part of the hemisphere. She showed a childlike delight in the mountains and the woods and the lakes and the ocean and the trees and the flowers, and exclaimed how nature was proof of the existence of God. My husband would smile at her exuberance and every year he made it a point to buy her calendars with pictures of natural wonders and bewitching scenery for her to hang on her walls.

Well, sadly enough, my mother fell prey to the dreaded Alzheimer's disease, and it was a pity seeing her retreat into the labyrinths of her own mind. Gone was the person I knew as my mother, this independent, headstrong, fearless woman. She was gradually becoming a stranger to us as we were to her. All it took was one fell stroke that fateful Monday morning when my eldest brother discovered her on the floor of her bedroom. Bereft of speech and movement and the ability to swallow, she was admitted to the hospital. I was the last person she recognized with clarity when I flew from Vancouver to visit her, and she clung on to my hand with her one good hand. The next day my second brother arrived from London, and she was able to recognize him, with difficulty this time. She drifted in and out of consciousness and my prayer to God was to take her without further suffering. The agony lasted 5 long months, months of hopelessness and anguish and helplessness and despair and a whole host of other emotions. My mother is now at peace, and as I mourn her passing and reflect on the good times I had with her, I am truly thankful she was my mother.

Mummy, I love you!!!