My Mother’s Day last week was pretty amazing.
At Amazw’Entombi, we’d been talking about how to remind the church congregation that 20 or so of their girls are getting together every Saturday afternoon to find and share and sometimes loudly proclaim their voices. We came up with the idea to celebrate Mother’s Day by giving each woman entering church a snippet of writing, along with a sweet (a wrapped piece of chocolate or candy).
With Cape Town’s winter rains setting in, our prep meeting was sparsely attended. (“Lovey, we’re like sugar when it rains,” my friend Johanna told me the next day when church attendance was similarly sparse.) But seven girls were there on Saturday, along with Judy, my friend from DC, who made a big hit when she brought small notebooks and pens as presents for the girls. We listened to Beyonce and handwrote 250 slips of paper. Gugu and Ayanda agreed they would explain to the church during the service what we were doing. We’d all stand up together on the pulpit and the other girls would read the poems.
And then…THOSE GIRLS ROCKED. Check it out:
And…
I was bursting with pride when I sat back down with Judy. And yes, all I got were the “Kimberlys” with Ayanda’s talk, too. Didn’t matter. The church got it.
Then, with Judy’s Flip camera put away, a couple of the women went forward to speak. The first woman’s voice was serious, and quivered with emotion.
“I can’t tell you how much it meant, to walk into church this morning and be handed a sweet and these words—and I’m not even a mother.”
You know how a lump can lodge in your throat in an instance, and you have no idea where it was lurking just a moment before? I was really glad I’d told the girls to hand out sweets to all the women.
The next speaker began with, “Where’s Kimberly?”
Words that can make me nervous in a whole range of settings. Pushed that lump right back down.
I raised my hand to wave, but that wasn’t enough. I got called up there again. You might have noticed I didn’t speak in the video, except to say when we started meeting. Empowering girls to use their voices means I get to cling to my introvert self and stay along the sidelines. Perfect!
But then, this mama presented me with a book of prayers to thank me for the work I’m doing with the girls. It was wholly unexpected. They didn’t know what we were doing. I imagine the idea just came to her while the girls were talking. It was thoughtful and overwhelming, and forced me to find my own voice.
“I’m not a mother either. But today, I feel like I have about 20 daughters. Thank you for sharing them with me.”
That’s all I could get out. With the lump.
In four months in South Africa, I’ve met far too many motherless children, more than I’ve ever known in my life. Out at the Bridges School, where I also lead a group of Amazw’Entombi, our recent writing prompt was, “I wish I could…” A heartbreaking number of girls wrote, “I wish I could bring my mother back from the grave.” I wrote a poem about wishing I could dance.
Some days, I think I don’t have any life experience at all that can really help these girls.
I’m under no illusion that I can, or should, mother them. I tell myself I just want to be an adult presence in their lives. Someone who can listen to what they have to say and cheer them on when they say it well, and even when they don’t. If I really begin to think about all the emotional and physical needs they have, I’d become paralyzed. I’d hide out in my cottage, or scurry back to DC. I’m not going to do that to them. These girls aren’t hiding out anywhere.
Somehow, those mothering moments still happen. Annasuena asked me to come to her school for parent-teacher conference night. Her marks were so good. We did a little dance in the hallway after she got her report. (Her dance: much better than mine.) Her English instructor in particular raved about her.
“Well, you know,” I told him, “she’s a poet. A really good one.”
I glanced over just in time to see Annasuena roll her eyes and cringe into herself, in equal measures of pride and embarrassment. I knew the move. I’ve done it so many times myself. Whenever my mother brags about me.
