Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m still in the last hour of 2017 in my part of the world. If it’s already 2018 for you, Happy New Year! I can’t believe I’ve actually come to the end of 2017 and the end of my writing challenge.
The last woman of influence I want to write about is, of course, my mother. She is also the most difficult person for me to write about. I remember telling my friend, a few weeks after she died, that I was feeling really bad that I hadn’t been able to write about her. I eventually did, for a writing class and I also shared it here. The piece is called “To Die Is Gain.” When I came up with this idea, to honor women of influence in my life, I knew that I’d have to write about her again. It has still proved to be quite hard. Then I remembered that for her Birthday in 2011, I wrote a note on Facebook talking about her as my role model. Here’s what I wrote.
I remember the first time I was asked to write this essay. I was in Standard Four. I’d heard my peers talk about how their role models were people like Nelson Mandela, Wangari Mathai, Winston Churchill. I thought they were so awesome and I decided if I was ever asked, I’d say… I don’t know, whatever big name came to mind. Well, the opportunity presented itself sooner than I had expected, and I was required to write a full essay (not just blurt out a name as I had anticipated).
So, there I was, pencil in hand ready to write about my role model. See I wasn’t really a fan of history and I wasn’t creative enough to come up with something fictional. Ten minutes pass and the page is still blank. Beads of sweat started to form on my forehead. Who was i going to write about? *LIGHTBULB! * (a really dim one though) I was going to write about my mom! Well, she’s no Winston Churchill but at least I can fill a page with stuff about her, I’ve known her all my life.
There goes my pencil sprinting across the page. “My role model is my mother…” of course I wrote things like, she cooks well, she’s very pretty, she has a beautiful voice, she buys me the cutest dresses… Oh, and then I used a BIG word, “she’s a FISIOTHERAPIST…” Yeah, I had no clue what it meant or, clearly, how to spell it correctly. And thus, my essay was complete. It was no masterpiece, but it would have to do. Next time, I’d have someone really big to write about.
Thirteen years later I am faced with the same question (albeit of my own free will). You want to know what my answer is? You guessed it… My mom. You’re probably thinking I got lazy and didn’t research on my history. Honestly, I didn’t. But it’s not because I got lazy. It’s because, as I have grown up, I have realized that my role model really is my mother. I could write a whole book about why she’s my role model, but I’ll save that for her future birthdays and mothers days. Right now, I’ll say this. Of all the people I have met in my 20 some years on earth there’s only one who is all that I ever want to be. Only one whose opinion matters above all others. Only one who I will live to see remembered for generations to come… I could go on, but I need to save some content for future birthdays.
One day, I will write that book about her…
Heaven Bound 
Beautiful ☺️