Looking back at my own mother’s life, I wonder about the parallels between mine and hers. In all honesty, the only thing we have in common is that we were both divorced in our 40s.
Of course, we share other things in common given the common blood that runs in our veins. However, whereas my mother surrendered to a life of self-enforced stigma as a woman who was without her husband, I decided to take control of mine and make my situation work in my favour. I don’t have any ill feelings towards how my mother decided to handle her life. After all, she is of a generation which taught her that a husband was the focal point of woman’s existence and purpose. Without him, a woman has no reason to continue to live or hope of achieving anything of real value in her own right. For anyone who subscribes to that mentality though, I feel a deep sadness. I wish my mother hadn’t wasted so much time imagining scenarios about how others perceived her or how she had, indeed, perceived them. Her self-worth diminished overnight as a single parent.
Having the benefit of being an observor, I looked to my mother to understand exactly how not to live my own life as a divorced woman. And so, ironically, I am grateful to her for showing me what pitfalls to avoid – even though she is unaware of this inadvertently edifying role that she has taken on over the last few years. I refuse to not be counted in the world and take my rightful place on its stage. I demand to be respected as an individual in my own right. I also expect not be judged against the backdrop of my divorce. I have had to fight for these things in ways which haven’t always had me shouting at the top of my voice. It’s been more of a quiet defiance that penetrates through any kind of cultural nonsense.
I know that Allah chose me to live this life because He knew I could take it in my stride, Alhamdulillah. Where I have suffered losses, I have also made huge gains some of which have more than compensated for those losses. I still have bouts of sadness where I wish things hadn’t come to this; where I wished my marriage had stood the test of time if only because the father of my sons would have experienced first-hand all the successes that they have scored and the wonderful, joyful moments along the way. He truly missed out never having known their idiosyncrocies or their strengths and true personalities as they evolved. Alhamdulillah, I have been there all along the way and rarely missed a thing. It has been a true honour and privilege that Allah has allowed me to experience single-handedly. Through it all, I have come to learn more about myself in these last few years than ever before – and I would never have known my true potential had these exact circumstances not presented themselves.
My mother, with her fixation on the past, as if the clock stopped ticking with the end of her marraige, is the antithetical model for my own life. And I mean that with respect and not any anger towards her. I understand her position, shaped by her cultural upbringing. But a generation between us caused a seismic paradigm shift in our mentalities. I do think I have the better outlook on life because I haven’t given up on it. Instead, I have embraced every part and tried to squeeze from it what I can. Not just for the sake of this existence but moreso, for what I can take when I walk through the exit door of this duniya (world).
mymotherhalf.com 