Today’s daily promt is all about telling a story about how your week went through song.
I hate Mondays.
I miss my mother. (And this was one of her favs)
I’m feeling sorry for myself. Thinking about the past. A LOT!
F**K IT!
V is for VICTORIOUS
International Women’s Day 2013
Mellow Weekend vibes. I’m centered once again, looking ahead to a better, more productive week.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
I remember it clearly.
It was a Tuesday back in June 2010.
My mother, sister and I were returning from what would be one of the last visits to my mother’s Doctor. I was sitting on the back seat of the car, mummy directly in front of me. Trudy was driving.
I was trying my best to keep the tears at bay. But I simply couldn’t.
My mother said, “It’s bad isn’t it?”
And I said… “Yes. But we will get thru it.”
I could have chosen many milestones throughout my “adulthood” but despite age and the decisions I had to make over the years, the decision I made that day was the most adult thing I have ever done.
I was going to be strong for my mother, so she could be strong enough to let go when the time came.
My mother was my first love. It is from her I first learned what unconditional love really meant. Loving someone enough to let them go is hard…letting go of my mother…
Damn.
I still cannot even begin to describe what that took.
The mama & I
Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago
When you were elected PM, unlike many woman in this country I didn’t feel a sense of achievement for womankind or empowerment in any way. I chose to adopt a wait and see attitude. Since, I believe, that “actions speak louder than words”.
I had expectations of you. I hoped you would erase the memories I had of when you languished under the leadership of Basdeo Panday. What I expected of you, our recently minted SC Prime Minister, was a leader who exuded a strength that allowed you to keep your femininity intact yet remain forceful.
I expected you to be the embodiment of all that is empowerment not only for our women and young girls but also for our men and young boys. I expected you to show us all, that yes you are a woman, and you are capable of successfully running this country in a way that has never been seen before. I expected you to be a role model and to inspire young women here in Trinidad & Tobago and even those regionally, to strive for more, to want to achieve their highest good.
In the almost three years since assuming this hallowed mantle of leader of this sweet twin-island Republic, I call home I continue to wait for your shining moment. I am afraid that the hope so many women saw in the election of this country’s first woman prime minister may be in vain. What many thought would be “an iron fist in a velvet glove” now seems to be a manicured wave in well-coiffed photo-Ops.
My dear, PM when you are not firing errant ministers, you are brushing off as “political mischief” any criticisms directed at your government. Always with the fall back, “I was advised…” you seem incapable of accepting responsibility for anything. I thought the Section 34 Fiasco was the behemoth of all missteps this year. But I was wrong. The worst issue of 2012 for me, has to be the way you handled Dr Wayne Kublalsingh’s hunger strike.
You have been portrayed by many as “mother of the nation” in fact much of your candidacy hinged on your maternal instincts. What kind of example were you setting as a “mother” when you refused to meet with a man demonstrating his right to express his view? What kind of example were you setting when you stood by and endorsed the despicable behaviour of your government ministers as they belittled and attacked Dr Kublalsingh and his family? Or is this perhaps one of those “do as I say, but not as I do” lessons? Seems pretty Orwellian to me.
How is the arrogance you displayed when you ignored Dr Kublalsingh’s call for accountability and transparency by your government any different from the much maligned arrogance of Patrick Manning – our former prime minister? Is it perhaps because you are a woman, so it is not seen as arrogance?
Growe and Montgomery (2000) defined leaders as people “who provide vision and meaning for an institution and embody the ideals toward which the organization strives” (p.1).
You are guilty of the same things you promised to cast out of our political history as you rode your wave to power, instead of vision and good governance, we get miss-speak, misunderstandings and mischief.
Kamla, leaders do not command excellence, they build it. They should be willing to admit mistakes and learn from them…an expectation of leaders both male and female. It may be too late for you to sway me, but it is not too late for you to redeem yourself in the eyes of the public. This is my hope for 2013. You have at least two years left to change the course of your legacy. I wonder…are you up to that task?
All eyes are on you.
First photo taken of my mother and I right after midnight Mass on New Year’s Day 2010. Eight short months later, my mother returned to God.
Thank you.
In the eyes of a child, their mother is god. You were my first experience with love…with unconditional love. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving me so that I can rest in peace in the knowledge that in your eyes…I was enough.
Thank you for introducing me to God and ensuring that I learned the importance of a spiritual practice and experienced a truly deeper experience with unconditional love. It was because of your faith and your love, that I was able to grow and love and exist in the knowledge that there is something…someone greater than I am.
It is that faith, that you nurtured, I hold on to everyday since you’ve been gone. It is this faith that keeps my heart open to share my light with the world and not be bitter and closed off and angry because you’re not here. Yes I still have moments when I see ladies who are much older than you, still here, still alive…they get to have time that you didn’t. It upsets me sometimes. No, it upsets me every time. But, I hold on to the fact that in the time you did have, you lived and you loved. You loved hard. Time very well spent in my eyes.
I miss you everyday. I love you. You are in my heart and prayers.
V.
It occurred to me when I read today’s daily post prompt that if I fell in the shower or choked on my vomit in my sleep (this would have been two weekends ago though…vodka is a bad bitch) that it would probably be days before anybody knew that I had died or even suspected something was wrong.
I live alone and while I have lots of friends and my family is involved in my life, I am quite independent and I cherish the solitude of home. It’s not unlike me to go a whole weekend home alone, no contact with the outside world. So the first alarm bells would be rung by my office most likely. Or maybe my neighbour. But then I’d have to have bought the farm in the living room and even then it would be because I’d started to smell for them to suspect anything. This is quite possible though, if let’s say I came home after a night of vodka and choked on my vomit on the futon.
If I happen to fall in the shower, it would definitely take a while for anybody to smell notice anything. Not this weekend though, if I had fallen in the shower this morning and died…by tonight someone would have found my body because I have plans for the weekend.
But let’s say it was like last weekend, where I had no plans and just wanted to sleep in and I had fallen in the shower Friday morning, I’d have been dead for probably four, maybe five days before anybody suspected something was amiss. And that somebody would have been the office most likely, wondering if I had abandoned the job or something.
It’s a sad thought but not really because I’d be dead, but it would be a horrible and traumatic way for my family to find out. And my poor landlady. She might have a hard time getting the stench out of the carpet and then the issues with getting the place rented again because Trinis are “superstitious” people…and nobody wants to live in a “dead house”.
Thinking about it some more…quite like the world ending on Dec 21st, four days before Christmas, dying this weekend would be most inconvenient for me unless there are Keurig coffee machines in heaven. Yes. I believe in heaven. And yes. That’s where I’m going when I die. No discussion.
You see, I’ve been lusting after this particular item for months. I have lovingly picked out the coffee mugs I will be drinking those steaming hot creations in and I have also delayed purchasing my Keurig so that it will arrive juste à temps for my Christmas morning breakfast. If I bought it any time before the designated date and it arrived before Christmas, I would use it…because I’m greedy and have no self-control when it comes to shiny new coffee-making gadgets. Soooo in order to keep myself in check, I’ve delayed my purchase. To thine own self be true.
My date for this most-wanted purchase is Tuesday 11th, because after factoring in delivery time, that date ensures my B60 arrives on Friday 21st December and well…you see where I’m going with this right?! The world cannot end on December 21st just like dying this weekend is out of the question.
However, I have no problem talking about death or me dying and if nothing else today’s prompt made me think about what I leave behind for my family to pack up. It also shows me how vulnerable I really am and that I should have some kind of plan in place. So here goes:
Oh and as for writing the actual obit…I balked at the idea at first but decided to make it fun, while my fingers, toes and eyes are crossed that life does not imitate art in this case.
Deuces.
p.s. If I had died this weekend though, the one thing in my house I’d like to explain is the bottle of peppermint oil on top of my toilet tank. You see yesterday Awesome Stacy over at one of my favourite blogs, Stacy Makes Cents, posted this list of stocking stuffers and #10 on her list is the reason for the oil. Ladies, it can be a problem when we have to GO in public. Two drops of oil in the bowl solves the uh….smell problem. I used peppermint oil and trust me..it works!
You’re welcome!