I get this question a lot from Zimbabweans who are praying that my children, especially my eldest daughter somehow grows up to hate me. My “mother” used to threaten me with that as well, that one or some of my children will grow up and turn against me.
When I see Zimbabweans praying that my oldest daughter turns against me, I smile really. This is a young damsel who always looks out for me, and will take on anyone who hurts me.
When I was pregnant with Fadzi, it was one of the worst time and period of my life. I was going through a painful divorce which included my ex-husband trying to take my children from me and writing evil things about me on his blog, as well as going through the Walter Masocha court case. I found myself pregnant during such a time, so that was when I invited my “mother” to the UK. After all my troubled relationship with her, I still loved her dearly and only ever wished for her to just love me back and accept me just the way I was. So when I brought her here, the hardest thing was seeing her turn her back against my pain and not once was she ever a shoulder to cry on for me. If anything her presence brought so much pain to me.
I remember this day, when I was about 8 months pregnant, I decided to treat myself and have my hair done. I left her with my three older children and went to the hairdressers to get twisted long braids, which I used to love. After my hair was done, I bought some red lipstick in boots on my way home and applied it. I felt so pretty, as I had felt so shitty and down throughout the pregnancy. I had not worn any lipstick in months. So excited, I sent selfies to my “mother” and daughter.
My daughter was so excited for me and said, “Wow mummy you look so pretty. I love the lipstick.” I don’t remember my mother saying anything at all about how I looked.
When I got home, that evening, I put on the Real Housewives Of Atlanta, which was my favourite reality show back then. The deep red lipstick was still on my lips.
My mother then turned to me and said, “Ava ndivo vakadzi vane class manje. And everything about them ndezve pamusoro soro, ndezve mari. And make-up dzavo dziri professional. You can see none of them wear red lipstick. Red lipstick is for those cheap women with no money.”
“The women of Real Housewives are so classy and rich. Even their make-up is professional. You can see none of them wears red lipstick. Red lipstick is for those cheap women with no money.” Yes, my own mother said that to me when I was heavily pregnant and had just bought myself red lipstick to feel good as the world was so cruel to me during that season. When she said it, I felt so hurt, I wanted to ask her why she hates me so much. Was it my fault that I was not rich like the women of Real Housewives Of Atlanta? Should my own mother mock me cruelly even when I am heavily pregnant?
As if that was not enough, the next day, as I was on the mirror tying my braids, she came and stood behind me, and told me that at the back my braids were so ugly and the worst braids she had ever seen. She said the lady who had done my hair must have hated me because at the back she did a nasty job and she knew I won’t be able to see it. She said if it was possible it was better to get a refund.
I just stood there numb. I couldn’t see the back properly, but I could see enough in a mirror and I didn’t see a bad job done. I felt so hurt, it was something that actually shook me at that time, because I was pregnant and in a very bad place, I just wanted to look good, and even that my mother would not allow.
I stopped wearing the red lipstick for a while, but I told myself that I must look good in red lipstick for her to taunt me like that, so today I have quite a few reds, and my Boaz understands when I wear red lipstick.
Why am I sharing this in this article? Because I still loved her, and continued to love her even though she always hurt me every day, by saying the cruellest insensitive things to me when I honestly didn’t deserve it. Even if my braids were so ugly, and my lipstick was so tacky and cheap, I don’t think my own mother was supposed to say it to me like that. I would never say that to my daughter, especially when I know she is in need of love the most. At my lowest, nothing soothing or comforting ever came from her mouth.
One day still pregnant with Fadzai, I was dancing to There Is A Race I Must Run. It was one of those songs which kept me going during dark days. She was sitting in the kitchen, and I walked in dancing and singing. She was looking at me, but I ignored her and continued to dance. Then she said, “Hmm are these songs you used to dance to in Agape?”
This was during the time Agape almost took me to the grave. I just stopped dancing and looked at her almost speechless, and asked her, “Why would you even ask me that?”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t know its an offensive question, I was just asking innocently not knowing that I am touching a raw nerve” Her face would have that smirk that says yes, I got her, now she’s upset.
I would go into a room and start crying. It was like that almost every day she would be in my house, she would say things to defend the people who were hurting me the most.
Only last year when I delivered my son, and after about two weeks after she had cancelled the visit to see my newborn, that she called me to say a prophet had told her that my son would be disabled. That was the final straw, I almost went into shock with that message from the pits of hell, and it was my own daughter who helped me to get out of this toxic relationship I was chained to which drained my body, soul and mind.
My daughter thinks I am way too kind and way too nice for my own good. She is the one who gave me the guts to finally cut off my “mother” for good, she was like, “Mum, I know she’s your mother, and it’s so sad because she is your mum, but you just have to let her go now, she doesn’t love you as much as you love her. So the more she’s in your life, the more she will just keep hurting you. You love her more mum, and that’s not right.”
I took on my daughter’s advice and cut her grandmother off for good.
So I laugh when I see Zimbabweans wish that my daughter turns against me. Most of them absolutely love my mother and her wickedness is a force they reckon with. They defend her to the moon and back. So when I say most Zimbabweans are wicked and evil, I have lived to see that and their love for my wicked mother is a testament to their own evil. On my Facebook wall each time someone leaves a cruel comment, they literally grin with joy, and if anyone attacks the person who is cruel to me, they all come out of the woodworks, angry that someone has defended me. I have never seen a people so wicked. To think most of them actually pray that my own children grow to hate me, like the way my own mother hates me, is an evil which is beyond my comprehension.
As for my oldest daughter, it’s impossible for her to ever turn against me, or rebel. She knows my walk and my tears, and she loves Nino so much because of how he made me smile again.
And even if she does rebel against me, that would never be the worst thing to happen to me. Even if she stands on a rooftop and says “My mummy doesn’t love me, she’s nasty,” like what Zimbabweans wishes she does. I would literally climb on that rooftop and say to her, “Oh I am so sorry my baby girl, everything I did was for you, I am sorry I hurt you, I never meant to. Please forgive me. I do love you.”
And I know my girl, she loves apologies too much. Sometimes I wrong her, and when I say sorry to her, her smile is always priceless. And her hug is always the tightest. Just me saying sorry would actually melt her soft heart.
So yeah, because I am that type of a mother, I have no fear of ever facing the fate of my own “mother.” I can not have a child who hates me because I love my children more.
If my own mother loved me more than I loved her, then I would not even be writing this article. She knows that she will die without ever seeing me again, and she’s actually okay with that. She doesn’t care or have any desire to speak to me ever again or make things right. Her heart is cold and she has no maternal instinct towards me.
I was the last person to say to her please talk to me, why are things like this, I want us to make things right between us, but no, she doesn’t care. She reads every blog I write, she even comments with Facebook ghosts accounts. So my pain or love I had for her means absolutely nothing to her. And out of all her children, I am the one who moved the earth for her, twice I brought her to the UK, twice I saved her life. I have done things for her that none of her children will ever be able to do in their lifetime, but still, she hates me like the devil hated christ.
I remember one of my dear uncles who passed away. He was my father’s younger brother. We called him Babamudiki Enerst. He never said a word, he was always quiet. He used to live with us, and my mother taught us all to hate him. We had nicknames for him and everything. We never spoke a word to him. He was my own uncle, but not once did I ever speak to him, except for good morning or something like that. We were never even taught to greet him. We would put his food in a plate like the food of a dog. Then I left for UK, and never said goodbye to him, because he was like a leper.
Each time I went back to Zimbabwe, I never bought him anything. He would smile so brightly and ask me how UK was, but I would not give him much of my time, as my mother hated him so much. But the last time I went to Zimbabwe, and my “mother” turned against me and made my trip to Zimbabwe hell, so much that I told myself that I will never step on Zimbabwe soil as long as I live. As I stood there crying alone, as my mother and her children tormented me, it was Babamudiki Enerst who came and put his arms around me and told me to be strong and stop crying. And I looked at him and asked him, ” Why does my own mother hate me, Uncle?”
And for the first time, I saw the love in his eyes. It was the first time I spoke to him and noticed that he had always been there, but I never noticed him. He told me that there is something deeper, he said its a hidden truth that my mother actually knows. He said maybe one day she will tell you why she loves her other children and hates you only, those were his last words to me.
I found so much comfort in confiding in him, I felt he understood me, and I felt so guilty for having grown up hating him for no reason at all. He was there for me when all my family forsook me in Zimbabwe. He was the only relative who never took my mother’s side. All the relatives I have today, side with my mother and hate me. But Babamidiki Enerst was the only relative who did not take my mother’s side, and sadly when I came back to the UK, within two years, he passed on.
It taught me a lesson, that at times we are told to hate people and turn against them by the majority, (In this case it was my mother who taught me to hate my own uncle) yet that person you hate for no reason at all will be the person to help you one day when no one else can. May my Uncle’s soul rest in peace.
Like I always say, all the curses that people wish upon me, God turns them into blessings because He knows my pain, and that I am a rare human being on this earth, hated by my own “mother”. God has mercy for people like me because my tears have always been his sweet-smelling aroma before His Throne. Hated by my own so-called people. So because of that, he gave me the fruit of the womb and made me bore many sons and daughters, and none of my children shall shout on rooftops that they hate me, but rather they shall always be my arrows in my hands.
They will be the ones to carry my legacy and say, we are the children of Mary-Tamar was Jean Gasho, and hold that as a badge of honour.
The Genesis Of The Revelation By
Mary-Tamar was Jean
jeangasho.com 