Moms

I love my parents. One of the best things about being home was hugging my parents over and over and over. The older I get, the more I am grateful for their unconditional love, encouragement and support, and the way they raised me and brought me into the world. I was born to one mother, and I love my mom. She is kind, thoughtful, full of faith, funny and constant. In Zimbabwean culture, you have more than one mom because your mom's sisters are considered to be your mother as well (amai nini) - just as much as your birth mother (therefore, you may need to be excused from work for your mother's funeral several times). Of course, I got another mom when I got married, and my mother-in-law is a wonderful woman - caring, committed, fun and hard-working.

I have two Zimbabwean mothers, and they are both remarkable women who have amazing faith, love, courage and grace. They have both accepted me with open arms, hearts and ears, and I love them dearly. For Christmas, my Canadian moms sent gifts for my Zimbabwean moms, and it has been a humbling, joyful experience to see them open these gifts. Neither of them had had a single gift to open on Christmas day, and so this week they had huge, wide smiles on their belated Christmas - sent all the way from the other side of the world by women who have never met them, but feel connected to them because of me. It's good to have moms.

It's also been a humbling reminder to have the repeated conversation, "what did you do for Christmas?" "we had a family funeral, and then another one on new years day." Death doesn't respect holidays here. It just steals people's mothers, father, sons, daughters and friends day after day, undramatically and painfully; unworthy of news headlines and yet devastating.