Mothers are special: They are communal beings

Halfway through the function, I boarded the nearest commercial motorbike and rushed home. The rider did not get to the house because we found them by the roadside, the older woman with my then four months old son, was wailing at the top of his lungs.

When I carried him, he immediately kept quiet and slept off. I was at a work function right after my maternity leave. However, I had hardly settled down when I got the call that my child had been crying nonstop. I had left him with his uncle, who was normally very good and natural with babies. They particularly had a great relationship, so I had assumed the baby would be fine.

That crisp memory came back to me the other day. There was a persistent child’s cry that cut across our entire neighbourhood. Just like in my own season, when a mother in the neighborhood took over my crying child to calm his nerves, I got out of my house and offered to help with the crying child because the cries were deep and agonised.

He was so agitated, he continued to cry even when I carried him and placed him on my shoulder. Gently, I started to speak to him and declared peace on whatever was troubling him. He started to calm down. I continued speaking over him, telling him that it was well; his quiet sobs relented and he fell asleep.

I gently rubbed his back and let him sleep while his carers stared at me in utter shock. “You carry magic,” one of them said. There is something about being a mother. We are communal beings. We shall almost always reach out when we see a struggling parent. We shall almost always offer to take on the irritated infant.

It was absolutely heartwarming to feel the little boy in my arms as he slept on my shoulder. I almost wished I would have another child if only just to be able to hold them in my arms and call them my own.

I was quick to dismiss the thought and bring myself in check. Babies are the most deceptive beings, sweet and cuddly with the same possibility of being the most nerve-wracking individuals to the point where you want to donate them to the next willing buyer. I pushed the thought further out of mind even as I remembered the many times my dearest mother nudged me to have another child.

Oh! How she begged me to have another child. How she hinted on the beauty they would add to my life. In fact at some point, she offered to help me look after the child. All I needed to do was to bring the child forth.

Babies are special. We are moved when they laugh and we feel broken when they are in trouble.