I WAS A MOTHER ONCE

For two years, I was a mother.

A proper mother.

I know you do not actively put a timeline to motherhood because it binds you for a lifetime but hear me out.

I found her. I met her. I babied her. I loved her.

Allow me to tell you about the two years that I was a perfect mother to her.

I watched her become mine in all the quiet ways that matter. I babied her. I worried about her. I learned her little ways. I loved her with the kind of love that makes you forget where you end and where she begins.

For two years,roughly two years, she was my whole world.

It was a relationship I never knew I would find in school.

She was in the same stream as me, just two classes behind. At Moi Forces Academy, school mums and school daughters were a thing, and I never thought I would want any of that for myself.

But with her, it was different.

I really loved this girl.

She was mine to love.

Mine to watch over.

Mine to care for.

This girl was stunning.

Before her, I used to be very biased towards light-skinned women and considered them the definition of beauty. Then there was her.

She was dark-skinned but extremely pretty.

Her eyes would pierce through your soul and her smile would beam in her eyes. There was something about her that made me know, for a fact, that she was a good human.

I hugged her in the corridors. I went to her class to check up on her because, honestly, it was intimidating always walking into a class way above yours. So I chose to go to hers.

I was smart at school and I was always among the top seventy students. What this meant was that there were snacks for the top seventy.

A soda.

Tropical sweets.

A Pin Pop.

A biscuit.

We never had a canteen, so these goodies were a goldmine.

And because I loved her, I started preserving some for her.

Just in case she didn't have any.

There was this one time,the very first time I was among the overall top ten students in the whole school.

I got a chocolate.

The top ten were given chocolates and a chance to hug the principal.

With this particular chocolate, I didn't want to share it with anyone. I remember pinching it under my locker over preps.

But for her, I really had to find her.

I had to give her a piece.

I was always careless when it came to filing my past papers and keeping them safe. But somehow, somewhere along the way, I started filing them.

For her.

So I could have something to hand down.

Something she could use long after I was gone from those classrooms. My skirts weren't in good shape to leave them for her once I was gone.

She didn't like school as much as I did, so I listened to her rant.

Sometimes I complained with her.

But she complained more.

I encouraged her with maths, although I somehow passed down my own bias that Madam Nanii was better at teaching maths than Madam Nanii.

She rooted for me, always. Genuinely.

She celebrated my wins as if they were hers.

She would bask outside her class during break time and if time allowed us, we would talk and talk and talk.

For the years that she was there, I watched her slowly becoming.

She tried different religions and I watched how boldly she did it.

She tried CU once and never went back again.

Then she tried SDA, and this got her going to funkies.

Then she tried being Catholic.

A rosary.

Memorizing her Hail Marys.

And suddenly, she had another reason to leave school for functions.

Whenever she went, she would bring something back for me.

A piece of bread.

A soda.

A banana.

And then she would tell me how exciting her trip had been.

I was stuck with CU.

I didn't go to entertainment on Saturdays (I was that girl).

Our worlds collided in that way, but it never changed or defined our bond.

Of course, there were prolonged silences between us. A week,or two,or three, without talking

There were meetups where there was nothing to update each other about.

No complaints.

No stories.

Nothing particularly exciting to say.

Just two people sitting together, appreciating that we had each other.

And perhaps that was enough.

Then came the time for me to sit for my KCSE.

It meant leaving school.

It meant stepping into a world I knew nothing about.

It meant not knowing what was on the other side.

And, more painfully, not knowing whether I would ever see her again.

I had an A4 book dedicated to everyone who wanted to write me a message. Most Form Fours had one. We would pass them around, collecting little pieces of love and wisdom from the people we had spent our school years with.

Of course, I took mine to her.

I had to.

It was probably the only message I really wanted to read.

She wrote on it, then sealed the page.

On the outside, she wrote an inscription:

Open after results.

It was so tempting.

But I waited.

Then came the last day of school that year,the day the lower classes had to go home and leave the candidates behind.

I almost wept.

She was leaving.

And I wasn't sure I would ever see her again.

Then I got my results.

I searched for that book immediately.

I needed to read her message.

And there it was.

She had written something along the lines of:

You are reading this today, and I know for sure you have passed with flying colours. It is the grade you always wanted. I always believed in you, mamaa...

And then she had written down her phone number.

By this point, I had a phone.

Wale tunapewa simu after high school, wooi.

So I reached out to her.

By then, I had also started learning Spanish, and because I loved Spanish and wanted to reflect it in the things I loved, I started calling her mi hija.

My daughter.

Over the years, we have kept in touch.

Life happened.

We grew.

We changed. She became the bravest version of herself.

We became different versions of ourselves.

And somehow, through all of it, we remained.

I know I haven't been the best of mothers in the past few years.

I know there have been times I could have done better.

Times I could have checked in more.

Times life got in the way.

But I once was.

I once was a very good mother.

Recently, I saw her in Kabarnet.

And I don't know if it was coincidence or if the universe was simply being kind to me, but suddenly, there she was.

My girl.

The little girl I once saved snacks for.

The girl I searched for to share my precious chocolate with.

The girl whose past papers I carefully filed away for.

The girl who believed in me enough to write open after results and trust that I would make her proud.

The girl who once called me mamaa.

And I realised something.

Maybe I never really stopped being her mother.

Maybe motherhood, after all, does not have a timeline.

Maybe sometimes life simply takes you away from the people you love and, if you're lucky, gives you a way back to them.

So perhaps this is our second chance.

A chance to find each other again.

A chance to sit together and talk and talk and talk.

A chance to complain about life.

A chance to celebrate each other's wins.

A chance to be there.

I was a mother once.

For two years, I was a mother.

A proper mother.

And maybe, just maybe, I get to be one again.

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Hello lovely readers!

I hope you enjoyed this particular read. Writing this made me so nostalgic.

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