A Mother’s Day Note to the Unsung Mothers
قلب الأم مدرسة الطفل
A mother’s heart is a child’s school.
I spend this Mother’s Day as I have for the past 12 years: attending the Mother’s Day Classic walk first thing in the morning, followed by an aimless walk around Melbourne’s CBD to find somewhere that everyone else in Melbourne hadn’t also thought to go for lunch. But this year feels different. The 4km walk around the botanical gardens, surrounded by fellow walkers doused in the symbolic pink of Breast Cancer awareness feels like greater a luxury than other years; the directionless, restaurant-hunting walk less exhausting.
This Mother’s Day, my mind is elsewhere. It wanders to the memory of sitting in the living room of the most inspirational mother I’ve met to date: Amina. For Amina, Mother’s Day ought to have been celebrated 6 weeks ago, on March 21. Whether or not it was celebrated I do not know, for this day now coincides with the anniversary of the Syrian uprising.
I met Amina and her children in Izmir, Turkey, a matter of weeks ago.
As-salaam ‘alaykum [Peace be upon you]
Wa ‘alaykum salaam [Upon you be peace]
After greeting each other at the door, I am invited to sit on the couch whilst Amina and the children choose to sit on the cushions on the floor. This physical positioning makes me uncomfortable in its unfair yet apparent representativeness of the broader situation: I am a stranger to this family, yet my skin colour, my clothing, my proficiency in English represent me as someone who is perceived as being in similarly higher position within a societal hierarchy — albeit unjustifiably, undeservedly and unfairly. Naturally though, as soon as Amina tells us that her daughter Busra loves to draw, I am soon sitting next to her with my journal open, offering her the use of a crappy purple pen if she would like to draw anything.
She signs the picture with her name in both Arabic and Turkish. This is yet another reminder that my privileged position is not warranted, for my constant inferiority in being monolingual is brought to the forefront yet again — this time by a 10-year-old who’s lived in Turkey for a mere 8 months.
Amina sits crossed legged with her 7-year-old son Mohammed squished up beside her; uncomfortably close for some, but instinctively so for this mother. Mohammed has a shy yet sheepish smile across his face — the kind children hope you can’t see but know they are unable to hide. Amina tells us that every morning he says to her “Mum, look how beautiful I am”. It warms me to see his spirit: the vulnerability and innocence still alive within the child who could so easily have lost both. The protection of this I attribute largely to his mother.
The connection and trust that is built within the homes of a majority of these families is as though a 2-year friendship has been fast-forwarded to fit within a 2-day time slot. Between this visit and the subsequent one two days later, my admiration for Amina — the most inspiring mother I’ve met to date — is confirmed:
Amina begins by telling us that Busra dreams of becoming a doctor. Well, dreamt. As one of the top students in her class in Syria, she loved going to school. They lived in Aleppo — Syria’s biggest city where violence has significantly erupted in the last 3 weeks — which, at the time, was controlled by the rebel group the Free Syrian Army. She, combined with our translator, explain that the method of bombing in this area involves dropping barrels filled with gun powder from aeroplanes, causing an explosion on impact (we’re told they’re cheaper than missiles). Due to the frequent occurrence of these attacks, Busra began to lose consciousness every time she would merely hear the sound of an aeroplane. Her schooling was put on pause.
The family decided their only choice was to move to another area nearby to Aleppo, but one that was under regime control. Here, they lived for a short while before the Free Syrian Army arrived again. The result: their new home was under siege for 3 months, meaning they had little access to food or water. After this, they returned to Aleppo and made the dreaded decision to flee to Turkey.
Busra sits, still smiling, plaiting the hair of a doll that Amina tells us has also made the journey from Syria. She was surprised to find it in the bottom of their bag when they arrived in Turkey. In Turkey, Busra speaks of no longer attending school. She attends a Turkish school where the teachers get impatient and frustrated with her lack of command of the Turkish language and related miscommunications. Amina assures her that she must say in school. The hope of becoming a doctor remains.
Amina goes on to explain how her children can get easily frustrated and upset. She refrains from responding with any similar emotion:
“When I was a child, we would play in the streets. These children have only seen war. I can’t be angry at them.”
I tell her that she’s an inspirationally good mother as her children continue to smile.
“I gave them my life,” she responds. A literal translation here that I take to mean she lives only for them now, for they are her life.
Half way through our first visit, Amina’s eldest daughter arrives at the door, a mother herself. She is 16; her son 2. Hasan, our Syrian translator , is equally taken aback for he’s never met nor heard of a Syrian mother this young. This young mother’s experience is one that is so far removed from the kind of life I know: 16 short years complete with marriage, childbirth, motherhood, war and escape, all whilst still being a child herself. A childhood that was evidently short lived. She provokes a sense of bewilderment and empathy, but not sympathy, for this mother has a strength that is beyond the impact of sympathy from the likes of me.
As for Amina's 15-year-old son, I am unable to meet him for he is at work. Not school, work. He is the only source of income for the family, but on the second visit, Amina tells us he just lost his job due to language and communication problems with his Turkish employer.
As for her husband, Amina provides little information but says that he’s somewhere in Lebanon. “I don’t care for my husband, some say he’s remarried, others say he’s working. All I care about is the children.”
All the while, Amina maintains a smile that is warm and inviting. As is her aim, this smile is mirrored on the faces of her children, yet there is a poignant look in her eye that tells me many things remain unsaid whilst in her children’s company. This poignant look also exists in Busra’s eye, for she is a child that has seen, heard, experienced, more than anyone should in their entire life, let alone in their first 10 years. For you and I, an airplane overhead is inconspicuous and unacknowledged; for Busra the mere sound continues to cause distress.
To the mothers out there I’ve met over the past 3 months: Thank you. Thank you to Amina & to all of you who tirelessly prevail when you have every reason to give up. Thank you for embodying all it means to be a mother. And I do not mean to articulate this love you show for your children as if it is in isolation: I thank you also for displaying it to an undeserving stranger like myself. Thank you for being the protectors — both physically and emotionally; for being brave and resilient; inspiring and admirable.
Thank you for being the heroines of your own stories, and also mine.
These are the women who open their doors when the world closes borders. They open their arms when the world turns their backs. They open their hearts when the world closes their eyes. They welcome while the world ignores. And they wait while the world bickers, politicises, dehumanizes and undeservingly decides their fate.
Happy Mother’s Day.
[** No Mary O’Neill’s were harmed in the writing of this piece: I told her that I was going to spend this Mothers Day appreciating one of the most inspirational mothers I’ve ever met (aside from her), and that that was not to detract from her being the wonderful mother that she is. She understood… “That’s okay. We’re all in different circumstances, aren’t we?”]
