Mummy Dearest

I hate flying. I try to keep myself busy. I listen to a lot of music. I plan, I time block, and still, only an hour of this flight is gone. So I always fall back to my in-flight routine.

I write.

Maybe being in the air inspires me because when I look back at the pieces I’ve written in flight they have a level of cogency and a bit of depth. I guess it’s easy to be deep when you’re in a tube with wings in the hands of Capt Joseph Mbugua.

I’m sitting next to an Indian matriarch. There are many jokes about Indians on flights and all the stereotypes are in full effect. She’s ordering loads of stuff from the in-flight crew. All he at a time while watching an Indian musical where the protagonist always seems to have his hair being blown by a wind machine. It looks like he’s about to be killed. Yep, he’s being stabbed. Blood everywhere but as with all Indian movies. Even as he’s about to die. There is not a hair out of place. These guys die in such style! Anyway, as he is about to die, his last words are “take care of my mother”

There’s a lot of fire and now he’s dead., wait a minute…. yeah he’s dead. Anyway, that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened so far. We are 3 hours and 26 minutes away from London.

Before I got on the flight I downloaded three movies from Netflix onto my IPad, one was Ricky Gervais’s latest special which I’m saving for an hour to landing. The other two were random. I liked the packaging. One is called Been So Long. It’s a British black musical. It didn’t say musical in the packaging. After watching 3 song and dance skits I lost interest and I skipped to the next one, “Mummy Dearest”

I’m a sucker for any type of movie that depicts strong black mothers because my first experience of black pride came from a strong black woman, My grandmother. So I downloaded it without a thought. When I pressed play, I realized …. IT’S A FLIPPING NAIJA MOVIE! – Really Netflix, 3 hours to go and this is the best you could do for me? I don’t watch Naija movies. They ain’t for me but I pressed play regardless.

Mummy Dearest is a movie about a group of relatively successful siblings who have no time for their praying mother. She calls them religiously every morning and evenings only to be put on hold or to be told “I’ll call you back later” – yet still she calls and still she prays for them.

This caused me to pause the movie to think.This must be a sign. The Indian hero who died on the screen next to mine, his last words were “take care of my mother” amidst the fiery circumstance of his death and here on my screen, in Nigeria, a praying mother was being ignored.

By now I’ve been sucked into the vortex of this Naija flick, the acting is terrible but I begin to relate and I think about how many times I tell my peers to look after their mother and the make peace with their past if they have any issues outstanding … the movie continues. The busy son in the movie has a colleague in his office who has just lost his mother. As he condoles with him, the guy says “the uncertainty” of life. The son immediately books his annual leave and decides to go visit his mom upcountry. I guess he felt guilty for all of the calls he didn’t answer from her.

I’ve paused the movie to write now, to ask anyone who’s reading this to give their mom a call if she’s still alive and offer a prayer of gratitude if she has departed this earth. I know for a fact that the only reasons I’m still here are the prayers and lessons of a praying grandmother. I won’t sit here and pretend I have had a relationship with my Father. I haven’t and couldn’t care less whether he’s is dead or alive, but that’s my burden.

Where there is a chance to honor your parents, do so. In the first 20 years of my working life, I was consumed with working hard to make sure my Grandmother was okay. When she passed away, a piece of me died too. The strength to go on came from the knowledge that my siblings and I had done our part and every phone call ended with “I Love you”

The child is the father of the man, our parents did the best they could with the knowledge and experiences that they mustered. While they may not have been perfect. They are the link between us and the past and the angelic guardians of our futures.

Make your mom smile today. Give her a call.

Now back to this Naija flick Okay-oh!

UPDATE: The Indian lady just asked me “you do radio? – Hope you don’t mind I saw all those notes you were writing” – We are now talking about how she spends 2 months a year in London and how her sons live there. Her grandkids always convince her to come for the winter. When I tell you that life gives you signs….

Selah!