of love, life and living it up

there are countless women in my life that i would like to celebrate, from women who have inspired me to my friends, to aunties and cousins, my sister and those who are like sisters to me or the woman who taught me some of life's most important lessons (my mother). then i immediately thought of her mother and i saw where it all began.

my granny is like most old people - stubborn and set in her ways and has a way of saying exactly what is on her mind without seeming malicious. actually when she does speak her mind everyone usually bursts out laughing, not because we don't take her seriously but she is seriously one of the funniest people i know and none of it is intentional. so as people usually roll around in stitches she just sits there and wonders why everyone is laughing.

it sometimes amazes me how easy it is to forget that despite of how strong and resilient my dearest gaka is, she is first and foremost a woman. one who has endured heartbreak, disappointment and hard times like any other woman. one who has borne all this with the utmost strength and the attitude that life must go on and therefore she must not give up. so simple, but as i grow up i'm finding out how difficult that is to put into practice.

it must have been hard to give birth to thirteen children and take care of twelve. more so when she was part of an organisation that ran an orphanage. in those days it was unheard of for someone to have a large family and still find time to work outside the home. my mother has told me that gaka always used to tell them that they are responsible enough to take care of each other while she was gone but the children of the orphanage had no one and that wasn't right. she took in relatives and friends when it seemed that their home couldn't possibly squeeze in anybody else.

she had seven girls and each and every one of them went to school, because her and my grandpa were of one mind set, that everyone was to go to school and excel. it didn't help that as a teacher my grandpa taught most of his children and they would be spanked for being naughty then they would get home and get a beating from my grandma as well for not appreciating their opportunity and defying their teacher. my grandpa would go on and give them another beating for being naughty in school - in school, he was the teacher at home he was the father (i can now see where my mother got this thing of beating someone multiple times for the same offense, haha). even till the very end, her and my grandpa worked together as a team and it was clear to everyone that he adored her. in his last years as his memory became fuzzier and his body became weaker he could still remember his wife and would listen to her when she told him to stop being stubborn. when he passed on, i remember watching my grandmother and thinking that she must be so strong to have been able to get through that difficult time. unknown to me, she was very much in shock at that time and she kept telling my mother and my aunties that life must go on and that they must not give up.

out of thirteen children, only seven are still living. now that i am older i realise how hard it is to lose a child soon after birth and yet be there for his father, brothers and sisters who were mourning the son and brother they wish they has gotten to know better. to have a child commit suicide and still want to go on. to see three more children ravaged by disease in their adult years and see them deteriorating before your very eyes as you seemed to defy old age then be by your husband's side as he slips further and further away from reality and then have to bury him and soon after lose your youngest son to a car accident. i know now that she has extreme strength and resilience, all because she believes that if she is still alive she has a purpose.

now into her nineties (she doesnt know exactly when she was born) she still remembers all her thirty five plus grandchildren and twenty (and counting) great grandchildren. when i go and greet her she greets me as "wa ka-" because i was named after her and i am thus her fathers daghter. she asks me how 'the wangari maathai' course is going and then tells me that my grandpa was very much involved with tree planting and reafforestation projects and then says that that part of him lives on in me. she does this this for every one of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. then she will go and tell you a story about how she fell asleep under the mango tree and woke up to find the goat eating her dress and we all laugh. she is truly an amazing woman.

as i said before, my grandmother can be stubborn. she refuses to sleep on any other bed apart from the one her and my grandpa shared for so many years, watches the ancient black and white t.v that her son bought almost forty years ago because 'it is best' and when shopping for freezer pointed at the biggest industrial size one and said that it was that or nothing because it had to fit a whole goat and a months supply of beans, maize peas ... not that she would eat them herself but she had to stock up for others who came visiting or came to stay. she is stubborn with good intentions and now i see where my mother and my aunties got their resilience from. i have only just begun to scratch the surface of who my grandmother is. she is what international women's day is all about, women who will simply not give up no matter what, who in spite of all that they have been through personally still find a way to better someone else's life. there is no superhuman strength involved, no special powers. just a big heart and a genuine concern for others well being.

my mother often speaks of her grandmother in the same way, saying that she could see where her mother got all her qualities from. so it didn't begin with my grandmother at all, it just goes further back than most people care to look. international women's day is all about those who had a hand, whether directly or indirectly in bringing up incredible women that we have in our lives. so remember to give a woman you care about a hug today and let her know that you appreciate her.