Ma’ami,

you would love these women.

Maybe not at first,

maybe not all at once,

but oh, you would love them.

They would speak to your heart

and

the things you wouldn’t say

couldn’t say?

Like “maybe I should have left my husband.”

Maybe I should have loved myself enough

To say, out loud, because it is important:

“I married a wonderful man,

but the wonder didn’t last.”

 

They would celebrate you

and hug you out of the dark places

where you hid your doubts about a faithful God

Your questions about a faithless man

Your prayers for your straying children

Your tears at four a.m

and five a.m

and eleven p.m

and midnight.

 

They would tell you

“ah, mama, you look amazing today!”

Or, “take that trip, mama,

it will teach you what deserving is.”

You deserve – peace in the home you built

with your own two hands

The joy of your grandchildrens’ laughter

A good husband

Or at least, a better one than

the wonderful man you married

loved, fed, clothed – stayed with.

 

I have questions, ma’ami.

Why did you stay?

Did you not have sisters

to hold you as you shocked yourself with your own tears?

Did no one tell you;

this is where you can go

When none of the children pouring off the playground

at pick-up

are yours

because your husband has stolen them?

Where were your sisters

to teach you how

you sweep up the dust,

throw out the trash

that a kicked-out man will leave?

 

I have so many questions, ma’ami.

There is so much I don’t know.

Why did they leave you alone?

These big-talking, prayer-hawking

women who claimed your strength

was enough excuse.

Where were they?

At this point:

wry laughter over longer hair

from cracked skull and month-long hospital stay.

Or this:

office-opening in Central Business District

and ‘Head-of-Firm’ on the door.

Did they love you at all?

Who did they think was holding your hand?

 

I have things I want to tell you, ma’ami.

Do you recognise the woman I’m becoming?

I would hold your hand now.

Do you see how your granddaughter laughs?

She will ask me about you

And I will hug her and tell her

at first, easy things, like

how I saw your face

In these women, in this place.

How it made me wish you were still here,

so I could be the one who finally told you:

You have to be more than a good woman, ma’ami

You have to be a selfish woman

and this is how…

 

This work was developed during the African Women’s Development Fund and Femrite African Women Creative Non-Fiction Writing Workshop in Uganda, July 2014.