Written piece
CALL ME MOTHER
Merit Gogo-fyneface
Nigeria
About this piece
My submission explores my experience of motherhood as a young girl who learnt to put her child first from the moment she came. It showcases the thread of love and sacrifice that is birthed across generations
Yesterday , I was a girl with dreams, hopes and a life that was mine. I have laughed hard and lived little.
My greatest laughter, the morning I lay bare on a hospital bed unconscious but still I muttered, "Where is my child?"
"Oh, give the woman her baby," a doctor said after they had stitched my belly closed.
Even though her umbilical cord which had been threaded in my belly for months had now been cut, as I heard the first cry, I resolved that would be the only kind I would ever welcome.
So I live differently, in the ways of a woman - carrying this new life that is now mine. I cloth her before I know what the weather feels like, she is well fed before I hear my own belly rumble. I have no shoes but her feet stays warm.
Call me mother, the essence of my life is felt in the laughter of another. Yesterday I was a girl but today I raise another who will raise another to raise another and the thread never ends.