A MOTHER’S LOVE part 1

Today I will write about my journey into motherhood. It is a feeling that I cannot easily explain in plain words. For me at least maybe there are mothers out there who can explain it better.

From the moment, a woman learns they are expecting a child things become more intense sometimes confusing and the excitement kicks in all together you start picturing what the baby will look like, how you will look pregnant, how it feels to have a tiny little human grow inside you sometimes it’s all happy and scary. One thing I have learnt about motherhood is whatever your child does, at whatever age, a mother will always be a mother, she will correct you and still love you at your worst mistakes no matter how big or small that mistake is. At least I knew my mother May Allah grant her the highest rank in Jannah would still love me at my worst.

Now when I learnt of my pregnancy a few weeks after I had gotten married I was super scared and happy at the same time. Scared because of all the things people go through while pregnant one of those things are miscarriages, they say a lot of these happen when a woman is undergoing some kid of stress and around the first three months of pregnancy. Around that time, much as I was newly married I was undergoing stress. Mom was sick and the constant hospital visits plus the no change in her health was so worrying hence the stress so I feared for my great pregnancy news.

My second fear came from a friend who had just undergone surgery because of an ectopic pregnancy I will not go into details about that but yeah what if I was told I am pregnant then I learn along the way something was not right? That always scared me as well. Then I also have a friend who had a very painful delivery the one word she uses a lot while describing what she went through giving birth is “STITCH” whenever I hear the word stitches ever since my friend had a baby, memory lane takes me back to when my friend had her baby. Well enough with the baby pregnancy fears. When the news were broken to me of I was going to be a mother I was so happy I just did not know what to expect and the fears too.

So the journey began it took me two days to tell someone I was expecting, my husband was with me when I was given the news so I didn’t have to tell him. Well the first person I told was my elder sister Ruckia, she had to be the first I told considering I am always comfortable talking to her about my personal matters, then I told mom and she was so happy.

It didn’t take so long before the hormones started to kick in. Before I knew it, everything started to smell real bad, the throwing up, everything was just so bad I lost my appetite and well something happened and mom said my baby would look exactly like the father till today, I still don’t know how she predicted that but it turned out so true.

Two weeks after I learnt of my good news, my mom passed away and this until today I have never been able to explain as the pain is so fresh. Even if I never really knew how to show it, express it my mom was always my strength I ranted to her about everything I went through. I know there are times I was so stubborn and hardheaded but she still held me high and in respect. I never got a chance to apologize to her for all the wrongs I did her but knowing how loving and Nobel she was she forgives me.

Here i was a week to bringing my bundle of joy to this world

 I have been a parent for one year now and if given a chance to sit down with my mom one more time, I would kneel down and apologize for everything I did wrong, I would apologize for not listening to her and I would apologize for disobeying her. I would literally beg her for forgiveness for everything I did wrong knowingly and unknowingly. I would tell her how much I love her and how much I want her in my baby’s life. Mom would have loved Ayman so much I saw her love my nephews and nieces she would have been so proud of me. I realized her importance in pregnancy and most importantly in the labor ward. Each time my labor pain intensified, I thought of the hurt, the pain and the tears I caused my mother. I believe born as a  woman I am blessed because in labor you get to experience true love through the pain and perseverance you go through. The moment that little creature is out , the pain goes like it was never there and hey, it’s love at first sight true love, true happiness and something so beautiful like the pain screaming is no more. You embrace the cry of a new born, you look at that baby and say wow, Alhamdulilah it takes love, prayer and strength to go through that particular pain.

Alhamdulilah I went through it I came out alive and I am a happy mother to a sweet little baby boy that I love with everything invested in me. I love him for the sake of Allah who gave him to me healthy and I will forever be grateful for that. I had a few friends and family who were supportive after mom Passed on and I thank Allah for them it would have been hard without them it wasn’t easy but they made it count.

I will stop here for pregnancy watch out for the birth of my baby boy.

Xx love Leiny

MY FIRST LOVE IS IN HEAVEN. DIFFERENT MOTHER'S DAY

My mother i believe is in heaven, she was a special human being. Am not saying this because she was my mother but because she was a mother a sister and a friend to everyone who crossed her path. She was an angel here on earth but like they say "you can never know what you have lost until you lose it. 

Many times she said something to me and i walked away, she advised and i didn't listen and sometimes she would caution me and i thought she was being too strict. It's now that i realize that she was a mother playing her role the best way she knew how. She was kind and very loving that she never shouted at us, she never beat us and all she did was care for us and made sure we were well taken care of.

She gave us all her children the best years of her life, she was the mother and father, she was the care taker and guided by Allah she did her job well.

As i look back on my life i find myself wondering did i remember to thank her for all she did for me? For all the times she was by my side? The times when i smiled, laughed,cried and was filled in sorrow? Did i remember to thank her for guiding me, for being my number one cheer leader and for celebrating my success and accept my defeats? Or for teaching me the value of hard work, good judgement, courage and honesty? I wonder if i ever thanked her for the simple things, the laughter, smiles and quiet times we shared.

If i forgot to express my gratitude for any of these things it's a little late for that but i hope that each time i whisper a prayer, no matter how silent or loud it may be it reaches you and whenever you hear it i pray that you a proud of the person i have become. I pray to Allah to forgive me for my short comings as a daughter and to bless you for the wonderful mother you are.

This is the first time i won't send you a mother's day message because you won't receive it, but among the many mothers days we spent together or apart i pray this one is the most special one as i will send you a special prayer for how special you were to everyone who crossed your path.
If you still have your mother, treasure her and treat her well with love, care and respect. Mothers are irreplaceable.

I may have not shown you how much i loved you but in my heart in my mind you were my mother and i smiled whenever people said i look like my mom.
Angels are very rare and when they appear they leave early ad i believe you left us too soon because you were an angel. 

I miss you and my heart breaks whenever i think about you, whenever am faced with a challenge or whenever i need to share good news that you should know first. You loved me first before anyone else and i believe you loved me most. I love you MOM and i don't have words to express how much i miss. I have written this note i have not written in a long time but this is for you. 

This is the first time i spend mother's day without a mother and it's also the first year i spend mother's day as a mother. I'am a mother now without a mother I wish heaven had visiting hours
. May Allah Grant you Jannah Ameen.

JUST MY FEELINGS SO PAINFUL SAD.

It became gloomy on the night of 10^th December 2009. I had a misunderstanding with the only boy I knew I loved then. Ivan, charming, always happy, encouraging and very supportive. Until today I doubt I have stopped blaming myself for his death for if it weren’t for our usual talks he would never have known I had a problem for him to try and help me out of it. It’s something I still cry about today, it’s something am not sure I will stop crying over the pain is still there after almost six years of his demise. I am still hurt, I still miss him and it hurts that everyone thinks I have not yet moved on. I believe I have moved on though I know his memory will forever live. The darkest moment of my life came when his mother called me on 12^th December to tell me he was gone. The night before I tried calling him I really tried but they kept disconnecting me. I keep telling myself that if they had told me he was in hospital maybe, just maybe I would have gone to see him and maybe we could have talked and maybe our talk would have lived forever the ifs are so many that the more I think about it the more they come.

When the mother told me he had gone I couldn’t understand I thought maybe he had gone somewhere, I thought that maybe he got angry at me for the misunderstanding and decided to walk away but still it didn’t make sense for I knew him as someone who cared for me deeply to let a misunderstanding destroy what we had. Well she meant he was gone as in he is dead. Till today when I remember the sound of her voice from the other side tears roll down my eyes. The thought of it all is unthinkable.

I cried so much when you passed away. I still cry myself to sleep today. Although I loved you dearly I couldn’t make you stay. I still remember the casket getting closed, I wasn’t there when you released your final grasp or when you finally closed your eyes. But I remember just before the casket was closed I promised to think of you each day and to tell you I will always love you until my dying day.

A golden heart stopped beating, Hardworking hands to rest. God broke my heart to prove to me that he only takes the best.

To the one I loved so much. To Ivan my best friend, I have not been able to replace you, I tried but I can’t find a match not even a little something in the people I have tried to move on with that can remind me of what we had. I am writing this because it’s December and to me it will always be a hurtful month unless something will happen that will take away the pain I felt 6 years ago. I still miss you the same way and I wish I could speak to you through my vibrant eyes. That’s what you always told me when I was feeling low. You said I had vibrant eyes and that you adore me. I feel like everyone I have met in the journey u left me on has held my hand just a little before they let go again and I found myself alone once more. I promised you that I would smile as much as I could and cry less but I believe I have cried more than I have smiled. Matters of the heart are not simple and no one can really avoid certain circumstances. I got a nice guy I almost got married to him but well things didn’t turn out as expected so I felt lied to and used. I am hoping to end everything soon but hopefully before December ends. Weird I had to set a date but sometimes it’s so necessary. Am locking my heart now and I believe this time it’s for good. I don’t want to love again. I am better off alone and with your memories I will be just fine. I am going to have as much fun as I can with myself and maybe just maybe I will black out with the fun.

Meanwhile the family has been so good to me. Mum Maggie has been supportive and she has been there for me and Samantha well that one says am too emotional but she is a very good girl. Kind though a little spoilt.

HORRIFIC TRAUMA ON THE UTTERANCE OF GENOCIDE

Many of us will hear the word genocide and link it to Rwanda and actually don’t give it much thought. Some will read about it and leave the read pages to that, “read pages” some will watch the Hotel Rwanda or other related genocide movies and shade a tear and in no time forget about what they watched. Some who actually don’t think such atrocities happen will simply tell you “it’s just a movie and we are living in modern times where these things don’t happen. Well these things that you may think don’t happen happened to not very far from us, it happened right here in our neighboring country Rwanda.

I should say hadn’t his devilish act happened, Rwanda would have been one of the great and most developed countries we got in East Africa. Looking at Rwanda now and looking at it 20 years ago? The country is doing great, in terms of infrastructure, it’s the cleanest city African country and people here are great.

Well Back to the Genocide, it may have happened 20 years ago but believe me it still feels like yesterday, to you it may feel like they should move on already but we all know you don’t wake up one morning and say “am going to forget the loss of a loved one” Same thing for these people. The death of a loved one hurts so much when you have spent sleepless nights in hospitals hoping and praying they will get well but it’s very and once again very painful if you wake up every night for twenty years thinking and having images of how your loved one perished, it’s traumatic to have images of your Tutsi mother being slashed to death, it’s traumatizing to be in hiding and hearing someone screaming for help because they are about to be slashed to death. Now that’s Trauma. I understand the break down the victims of the Rwanda genocide go through every 7^th day of April. Everyone has their eyes on that day, everyone knows what day it is and every person who was present during the 1994 Rwandan genocide knows what happened so it’s natural to break down. People were killed in churches, people were warned that wherever they went they will be killed, there was no escape.

photo by http://clayjar.deviantart.com/art/African-Children-43497710
Children as young as these could have seen what happened and they may forever be haunted by what they saw.

We need to help the Rwandan especially the Tutsi to overcome the pain and traumatic experience they went through. There are various ways of helping them, psycho social support is the main help for them to get well, teach them of what happened, it wasn’t OK for the Hutu to do that but they did it anyway and they need to forgive them. Not talking about it makes them build something inside them which is not good. Under the East African community “One people one Destiny” lets join hands on 7^th April and send our love to the Tutsi in Rwanda and encourage them about talking about the manslaughter that befell them. Advocating for peace and love among all east Africans should be one thing that drives us. I light a candle for the departed during the genocide and I say a prayer for all the affected, the victims and the victimized.

For all those who perished during the genocide,our hearts are with you and may your souls rest in eternal soul. The candle of love will always burn for you.

TEARS DON'T NECESSARILY CONVEY SADNESS

Tears don’t necessarily convey sadness

An intelligent person will open your mind, a beautiful person will open your eyes and a loving kind person will open your heart. Tears at times can be special than smiles depending on the occasion at which you are shading them, We tend to assume that tears only convey sadness that’s not true! I shade tears of happiness when something too good happens to me, something unexpected. We all know that people cry when they are unhappy, it takes a very emotional person to cry for happiness.  These tears are so warm and beautiful.

The saddest moment is when you say bye to someone who helped you stand on your feet after falling when everyone else pushed you to the ground when your knees trembled; these tears are too much they never end, nothing can make you forget someone very dear to you, someone who lifted you up emotionally, someone who looks at you and tell you, “you will be up there”.  These tears change from tears of sadness to tears of happiness when we shade then look up there and smile with a thought of they are watching us from above and they will always watch over us. We know they are better of where they are because of the things we sometimes go through.

The endless smiles we get when we finally achieve that goal we have been struggling to achieve, through hardship and using our achievements to better yourself when actually the person who made you go through hell was helping you better yourself. We should always learn through all kinds of experiences, never look at someone who sends and gives you harsh instructions as a bad person. This person is teaching you how the world works and if you know what you want to achieve at the end of the day, just be patient for the dark days will someday become brighter and it will be time for you to shine. Never treat someone badly because someone treated you badly revenge only breaks you because that’s not the kind of person you are. A kind person no matter how they have been mistreated will always be a happy and person.

A once broken heart is the strongest for a wise person for she uses it to evaluate what is of importance to her therefore not paying attention to what doesn’t build her. A once broken heart doesn’t easily make the same mistakes because we are all supposed to learn from our mistakes.

Sometimes, you got to stand alone and see if you can. We should learn to be independent. Let’s not depend on people otherwise that’s the reason we get disappointed and forget that the people disappointing us are also human.

First step to success is taken when you refuse to be captive of their environment in which you first find yourself because you should always use the bad beginning as a stepping stone to that place you long to be. Hope you get there in one spirit.

WHY VALENTINES DAY IS A WASTE OF TIME.

WHY VALENTINES DAY IS A WASTE OF TIME

Valentines day comes every 14th of February every year, most people refer to February as a month of romance. People exchange, gifts, candy, flowers and spend expensively on dinners.

 St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? 

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valenti nus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first "valentine" greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl--possibly his jailor's daughter--who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and--most importantly--romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”--at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

In addition to the United States, Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as "scrap." Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
 http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day

Now why are we Africans celebrating valentines day? So we even know the meaning of the day? Just tike many other  things have been imposed on us i thin

k this valentines day is yet another of the many things we copy.

I don't celebrate it and i would say am ok with it.