My grandmother: a tower of strength in her time.

Introduction

When I heard about my grandmother, I didn’t believe she lived. But I heard about her and was stunned about her.. Her strength and her resilience in life, in a time when young widows were not regarded as people in this country, have left an indelible mark on my heart and soul.

Early Memories:

I never met my grandmother. When I was born, my grandmother was long dead. She died of tetanus at a hospital in Nyeri , central Kenya in her late forties, where my mother was born. She has stepped on a nail which had rust on it, and she was infected. Her story is the story of resilience and strength beyond herself. My mother mourns her death endlessly. I long so endlessly to meet her. The way my mother speaks about her and asks me if I could ever match her it is as if she was a mythical woman

Lessons in Resilience

Through the stories of her own life, my grandmother has taught me the importance of resilience. She was born at a time when circumcision, for women was so common. She was not educated, yet she fought with a lot of dignity and strength for her children to be educated. Waking up early going to her little farm, little businesses here and there, selling her produce on market day. As I sit her and write this, I think for how her actions handed me the many educational opportunities I now enjoy. During the Mau Mau war of the 1960’s (British colony internal rebellion) she was a young widow, with very little children who as my mother told me regularly starved. She would boil stones in the fireplace to basically calm her children down and deceive her children to sleep, as the waited endlessly for food to cook. They couldn't go out for food because the British made them dig deep trenches around the villages, with stakes, which if you loitered in the night and fell into them, you instantly died. Many starved to death, and sold their bodies to African officers, for food. She didn’t have any food to give them but that was the only way for them to sleep. My mother survived on ovacadoes from a tree near thier hut. When she left those camps she had nothing, but as a widow she still had the horrific burden of bringing up children without a father at a very tender age because she got married very early. She was viciously insulted for not circumcising her daughters and she faced a huge battle, but she managed to instill the need for education on her young kids. Even after she died, my mother worked on the farm for hours and educated her sister. None got circumcised, because of her.

Conclusion:

I continue to journey through life, I carry with me the lessons she has imparted and the love she has given, knowing that my grandmother's influence will forever be a guiding light in my life's narrative. I'm named after her, my mother expects me to live out her legacy. I will I will be able to.