The words of a single mother of four who all her life has struggled to raise her children. I have known this sister for many years and even though she struggled, every conversation I have had with her was about her plans to make life easier.
It was never about giving up, but finding solutions to the problems she faced. Christmas is her favourite time of the year.
“I does be really busy around this time because is then the customers will come more but I still have to make the house look good for the holidays.
Them children getting big, only one still in school, but the place must look like Christmas for me,” she said and as she spoke she was busy trying to get some things done.
“Look I not rich but I does thank God for his blessings because I struggle most of my years. I get marry very young and was divorce very young. Divorce with a child, no education and really no job. It was just doing little odds and ends, nothing permanent. I had to actually beg a living with relatives,” she recalled.
I asked her why she was divorced.
“If I tell you, like I can’t even put my finger on it. We never was to get married and that is the whole thing. It was never about abuse or anything, just he was not for me and I was not for him. We talk today, we talk all the time but that was it. And I never get marry again. Not that I didn’t want but like it was not for me, like everybody I meet turn out not to be for me,” she answered.
“I wouldn’t tell you a lie, I still trying to find that man for me. I not desperate or anything but I will still be young when my children move on and it will just be me or maybe one of them will live with me. But I just want to find someone who I can grow old with,” she said, wistfully.
Then she quickly changed the subject.
“But you know God has been good to me because two of my children working and studying and the other one working. He now really into the books but he get a job and I just thankful. The other one still in school, so when I look at it things not that bad. I punish but I make sure I send them to school. I had to leave without plenty things but they went to school every day.
“And they is not bad or rude children. Sometimes I does have to lose it on them and the girls not helpful as I wish. But they does go and come home on time. Not one time I have to worry about where they deh or that they with some man or something. And they working to build life; they studying and working what more can I ask for,” she said with a small smile.
“And even though I didn’t have education and I punish, I always know I want them to go school because dah is something I didn’t have. Me mother had so much children she couldn’t afford to send we to school. Maybe if we did doing good maybe she woulda try.
But when you not going to school everyday and you not eating good and is just work and punishment, you just praying to get big. Back then you think when you get big all you problems gone but not knowing is then the problems start. And now looking back I know it is why I get married so young because I think that woulda end me problems.
“So because of how I was when I was a child I say my children must get the opportunity to at least finish school. If they pass the CXC it would be up to them because at least I would give them the chance and thank God two of dem so far do really well and now working and going UG. “Like I said the boy didn’t really do well but at least he get a honest job and I still hoping that you know something better will come for him. Not book wise but you know he could try he hand at some business or something,” she said.
“But now all of them working I have nobody to help me with the Christmas cleaning. The girls telling me how they would give me money to get somebody to help me,” she said laughing.
“But like I don’t like nobody in me house but girl this body not getting younger and so what I could do five years ago, like I can’t do it. And I always hustling, I still got bills to pay and one of them still in school so it is me on it all the time. Sometimes, to be honest, I does ask the Lord when I would get the opportunity to slow down. My body slowing me down but my mind always working.
“As I say, I not complaining because the Lord always makes a way. Even when I find myself at the bottom, and most times that is how I find me self, I know something will work out. My children always went to school and they never hungry. And I is a hard worker and I does thank God for his strength so I can do all the work; doing hair, selling, catering. Everything I does try me hands at and it don’t be easy but at least I still get the strength to do it,” she said.
I like the spirit of this sister. She does not give up. She sees the opportunities and seizes them. Life has not been easy for her but she is always looking for the next honest opportunity. She has already gotten her reward. The dream of most, if not all, parents is for their children to grow up to be productive citizens and so far three of her children are doing just that. That for me is a reward, but I do believe there is much more to come and she may even find that partner to grow old with.
She, like many of us, is in the Christmas season but let us remember to relax and recharge during the period as well and not spend all the money or expend all of our energy.
Have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous beginning of the New Year. This is the last Women’s Chronicles column until January 12th, 2025.