My Mother Will Never See My Newborn King

If you don’t know my pain, you will never understand my pen…

Yes, I am talking to you, my audience. Not the ones who like what I write. This one is not for the ones who write to me privately and say, ‘Thank you, Jean, for speaking for us’. This is not for the ones who love me, but for those who hate me, yet still, read every word I write. The reader who frowns and cannot ever understand why I have to write about it.

I wasn’t born brave, my mummy made me brave. I never knew how to survive, but my mother made me. Out of the worms, I became the butterfly.

8 weeks ago, I became a mother for the 6th time. When Chaka came, I cannot explain the joy I felt. But it wasn’t just me, the joy I felt was expressed by all who love me. We all wanted him to be a boy, and Chaka he became. 

But there was one woman who did not celebrate the birth of Chaka with me.

So why tell the whole world about it? You ask me, yes you who frown upon my pen.

It was my mother who taught me how to write. Her hatred often made me want to die, but when I wrote about it, I stopped crying and I felt better.

When Chaka was born, my mother was the first one I told, and I said mummy I have a son. She said she wanted to come and see him, and because I am such a trusting person, a little naive too, I took her words as nothing but positive. I have been so desperate for my mothers love that any hint of it, I celebrate, thinking this is it, now I can finally receive that mother’s love.

So I celebrated her just saying she wants to come and see my son because I have not seen her in years even though she lives 2 hours away.

She gave me a date, and I started preparing for my mothers grand coming. I don’t know why, but somehow I believed everything had changed.

Then just two weeks after Chaka was born, on Fathers day we celebrated the day like we had never done before. Fathers day always means a lot to my children and I, because against all odds, I have a Boaz, and my children have a father.

We took pictures of our celebration, it meant even more because we were celebrating King Chaka. I posted the pictures on my WhatsApp and Facebook. On this day,  Father’s Day, after seeing my posts and pictures, people who knew my story were writing to me, celebrating with me.

So my mother called me and I don’t know why in my naivety I thought her call was part of celebrating with me. Sometimes I am afraid to pick her calls, but on this day I picked. It was fathers day,  I never thought my mother’s phone call could be bad.

She had nothing much to say. There was no happiness in her voice. She made no comment or reference to the beautiful pictures I had posted. She said she was going to go straight to the point. My heart started beating, I wished I had not picked the call.

‘I’m coming from Church’, she said. She attends a Zimbabwean Apostolic church, they call it Mapostori Church. She says in her church, they see things in the spirit and the prophets there are able to see the future.

‘A prophet in my church has spoken to me. I am just here to pass a message to you. If I don’t pass this message to you I will never be able to live with myself,’ now my heart was beating faster, Lord why had I picked her call.

‘The prophet asked me if there was a newborn baby in my family, he saw it in the spirit. I told him that my daughter has a newborn son.’ My mother continued.

‘The prophet told me that your son is going to be disabled. If I don’t pass this message, when it happens I will beat myself up about it, thinking I should have said something.’ At this point, it almost felt as though my heart stopped beating. In my heart, I was rebuking her as she spoke. But all the celebrations of Fathers Day came to a halt. I felt like I was literally on the phone with the devil.

‘I know you probably won’t believe it, ‘ she went on, ‘but when it happens, at least I will know I told you. He may never be disabled anyway, so maybe don’t mind me. But this man is a prophet, he sees in the spirit. If you believe what I am saying, come to the prophet and he will tell you what you have to do. The way it will happen is that even the doctors will miss it, you will miss it thinking it’s not anything serious, then later on in life, your son will be a disable.’

As she kept on speaking I rebuked her. I knew I had to be strong. My Boaz walked in the room, he had warned me about getting excited about my mother coming to see Chaka, but I had said to him that she’s my mother, she has changed.

I told my mother that her message was not from God. And I will never believe it or receive it. I told her that my son’s name is a Hebrew name which means life so he will live a full life, and I as his mother believe the report of God about him over her report or the so-called prophet from her church. She kept on saying at least her hands are clean, when it happens she will know she played her part.

I told her that there is no ‘when’ it was never going to happen, end of.

I can never understand why a mother would call her own daughter who has just had a baby with such a satanic message. I have never heard of it since time began, but Solomon writes that there is nothing new under the sun, so it may have happened to someone before.

I called my best friend to tell her the news I had just received, she told me to rebuke it and said, ‘ That message is coming from the pits of hell, rebuke it, Jean. I doubt any ‘prophet’ even said it.’

I fought for my baby. He is a King, and no weapon fashioned against him shall prosper. All words spoken about him in judgement God will condemn. Every curse proclaimed against him God has turned into a blessing.  He didn’t deserve the words spoken to him by his own grandmother. But his star must be so bright, and his destiny must be so great for him to be attacked like that at his birth.

A few days later, my mother cancelled her visit to see King Chaka. I celebrated that cancellation because right now I will never allow her anywhere near my little precious Prince. As I write right now, I know my son’s destiny is already written, no man can never rewrite it or reverse it.

So back to you who frown upon my pen, if you don’t know my pain, you will never understand my pen.

My mother planted seeds of darkness in me since I can remember, but those seeds will not be transferred to my baby.

You can hurt me, and say things about me, but anyone who attacks the fruit of my womb, I will fight you back, and you can never win because as a mother hen when I fight you back with my pen, your arrows become weak.