Right from my childhood, I have been told my mother is the one who gave birth to me. As I grew in age and experience, I found myself struggling to accept that fact. Some years back, I read what Steve Jobs said about his biological parents.“They were my sperm and egg bank. That’s not harsh, it’s just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more.”
This arouses my interest in really studying what a mother really is. I am from Nigeria and I have lived with some women who are not my biological mother, and I know how ill-treated they treated me. Then I started to question myself: who is really a mother? Why should I consider my mom my mother?
Then I was meditating one night when a thought came to me that goes like this:
It is true that blood is stronger than water, but what is also true is that love is stronger than blood.
This made me realize the motivation behind Steve Jobs’s words, and then I came to the realization that:
My mother is not necessarily my mother because she carried me in her womb for nine months or because she laboured to give birth to me. My mother is my mother because she loved me and has been there for me my entire life.
Recently, I was listening to music by a Nigerian artist, Qdot. The song was a tribute to a woman called Moriamo, who is now deceased. After a while, I came to realize that Moriamo isn’t this artist’s mother. This particular realization is what made me write this article. Why didn’t this musician sing for his biological mother? Why was the song about Moriamo? who I later found out to be his grandmother. Then I came to a conclusion about my definition of a mother.
A mother is any woman who loves a child and has been there for the child in all her entirety, irrespective of whether she was the one that gave birth to the child or not.
So many children are on the street with no one to care for them, yet most women continue to attend mountain and prayer meetings in hopes of giving birth to one.
All women should be like Moriamo, treat other kids with love, and then do what this king said
Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again — Ecc 11: 1
I think Moriamo is one of the best mothers I have ever heard of, and I hope all women in the world should learn from her.
REST IN PEACE MORIAMO
Listen to the song here
