Somethings in a super-mom’s world

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Hilda had taken her last dose of injection and was struggling to explain to Otemu, her husband, what she could remember before she blanked-out and eventually woke up in hospital. ‘I was having some snaps of headache
earlier, but I belie…’

She couldn’t complete the sentence as she gradually fell asleep again. Otemu just watched her and could
only imagine how stubborn she had been for not taking time out to rest. “So she could survive being in a place, not walking around the house and getting unnecessarily busy,?” Otemu murmured to himself.

As Otemu helped to adjust Hilda’s right hand properly on her hospital bed, the doctor walked in talking to him, “ensure you buy these drugs tonight and let her begin to take them as prescribed,” he said, handing
the prescription to him. Since Hilda was fast asleep, Otemu rushed out to get the prescribed drugs from the Pharmacy
before going home to help the children prepare dinner.

Rather than help to prepare dinner, Otemu was treated to a light dinner of mashed potatoes with vegetable and fish stew. Melvin, who is only 12 years and the oldest of three children, had prepared the food and package a variety of foods to be taken to his mother in hospital. This was a great surprise to Otemu that the children could carry out such huge task when
his wife never imagined that they could do the smallest household chore.

Back home from the hospital after two days of treatment and observation of her blood pressure, Hilda sat
in the living -room and watched her sons perform the ‘miracles’ of undertaking domestic tasks effortlessly without her having to even direct them on what to do. They cleaned the house thoroughly and selected the cloths for laundry.
Breakfast was done perfectly without Hilda’s input and not with that of Otemu who needed to get some rest for shuttling between the home and hospital while Hilda was on admission.

Hilda was in for the biggest surprise when she was served fish pepper soup with plantain for dinner. ‘But just how did you do this?’ she exclaimed. ‘No one had come in to help do neither the cleaning nor the cooking.’ She felt helpless and stupid when her children aged 12, 11 and 9 years told her all they could help out with in the home; they could cook, wash, clean the home and still do very well in their academic work. The boys knew when to pack up their books in preparation for school the next day; they knew when to have their evening shower after dinner and how to put themselves in bed for sleep!

Undermining her children’s capability to helping out with some chores in the house, like many ‘super-moms’, Hilda had over the years slaved to prove that she was indeed a ‘super-mom’ ducked in a painful world. Over the years, Hilda woke up at 5am even if she went very late to bed. Nobody could prepare food for her family, she didn’t trust how well her children’s clothes would be maintained by another person, so there was no need to get a helping hand even when she had to be in her office at 8am and not leave until 5pm.

Hilda thought that her family’s survival revolved around her existence, and most of the times she worried how her children would manage without her when they eventually go to their own houses! She only just realization how wrong she had been, living in a dreamland.

For the very first time on the next school day, Hilda’s children were set for school without her help and when they went to her say their goodbyes for the morning to her, they found a bold inscription on her door, ‘NO SUPER-MOMS WITHOUT SUPER-KIDS!’