Adwoa Agyapongmaa – My Mother

What is grief to an agonizing daughter?. It drapes itself around her neck like linen – beautiful enough to be called art, heavy enough to stop her breath. The world sees an armour. An adornment. Sometimes mere space. But she knows what it really is.

My mother, Adwoa Agyapongmaa’s life exemplified the beauty of life itself. Ask about her and her praises run deeper into the hearts of the many she impacted – mother, economist, counselor, giver, daughter. We’ll save the rest for her monument.

I write about my mother, Adwoa Agyapongmaa more and more as a living thing. But I have scarce words for her experience with her daughter. A challenge I’m still trying to overcome; 20 months on.

I would miss her calling my name and me calling out “Maa meeba” in response to her cry. Little did we know that the days would come when calling names would be a canker, her memory only knew “Kojo,” her first grandson whom she dearly loved. Not more than me, I must protest.

But how does she forget her last born’s voice on Mother’s Day?

“Who is this?” Adwoa Agyapongmaa had asked.

And my heart sank – like a child who lost their mother in the crowd. As I did, far back in the 2000s at the International Trade Fair Center. The Adventist Church national camp meeting. I heard my name in the siren: “Julia Nana-Fosua, wo maame ɛhwehwɛ wo.” I don’t remember being scolded that day; but her weapon was ginger. You know where it went. 

But before the forgetting, before all of it, there were days that belonged to just us.

“Our Days” were happy days. On ordinary school days, I was always late. On final school days? I was the first to wake her. Special basket ready. Special bowl ready. My friends would celebrate with me.

My primary school friends loved coming home because your hospitality gave them no choice. Our study sessions were more feast than focus – and honestly, I always knew they were there for the food.

You understood my mumbles; “aba.” “Red.” You’d laugh, then act surprised just to make me say it properly. “Pad. Period.” It was too hard. But you always knew.

You made the best chocolate drink. Oh, you spoiled me. Your sister got me to eat fufu – but you? You’d simply get me some flakes, because your last baby shouldn’t be coerced, right?

Come and see me, Mummy. I have seen shegey … but you didn’t birth a weakling. It’s boot for boot for the evil ones out here. 〈Come and ask them〉– I bet they’ll run.

You were soft with me. Taught me how to sit, how to walk, how to talk. Permed hair never worked for me. I’m a Rasta girl now. Sister locs, learn the right term. You thought natural hair for a 4C girl was messy, but I think you’d like me like this.

I was your handbag for a reason. Leave me home with the tyrants and my smart mouth would be my undoing. Oh, but we travelled.

I imagine the woman you would have become 30 years ago if you had taken on that job as a tutor in the northern part of Ghana, tutoring maths and probably mothering students like you were to so many – I bet the life you so wanted would have been within reach… your entrepreneurial acumen is one to keep as a playbook for thousands of years to come.

And the evidence? Delivering care packages to your entire family, building care homes – you were wholly philanthropic. Now, those gold watches and the bountiful afro wigs would have added talking points for the rich aunty/mother that you were. You know, I tried to wear them but I don’t fancy them like you do so I substitute them for rings – which your son, my brother finds as an unthinkable abomination never heard of in the Aduana family… he ain’t see nothing lool…

I’ll be the rebel for you, mother, but mennhu y3! Your teachings have been etched in the tablets of my heart. I would lose my mind at one attempt.

“3nnyɔ hwee” was your answer to every foul play, every disappointment – but I like to think that I learnt this a little too much, so I say this more and more: “you surely won’t pass through my mother twice, because my father’s wrath would be present when you do.” You mothered us so well.

Chanting “y3wo’a y3ndidi” but still sharing that pie from the wedding you attended anyway. Calling or literally begging to come eat without having laboured with you.

And you sure ate – that’s how Gen Zs put it – with the oversized church or bronya dresses lol… They fit us for years! I’m beaming with joy as I pen this…

How silly of me to have thought you weren’t my mother. How silly to have thought you were too strict. How silly… how unbearably silly… to have thought you’d be here to see who I am becoming…

I miss seeing your name on my screen. Your quirky laugh. Your soft voice.

Oh, Grief. When I think I know what it’s like, I miss it again.

Was it wrong that I smiled when they visited? That they made me laugh? When my shoulders drop and my arms grow sore from holding on – I think that’s it. But grief doesn’t quite wear that much covering.

Grief doesn’t always look like crying at a funeral.

Sometimes it looks like hearing someone talk about their mother, and reaching for yours.

Sometimes it’s a Tuesday. Nothing special. Nothing wrong. Just a wave of missing with no warning and no reason.

This is the grief we don’t talk about. The residual kind. The quiet kind. The kind that lives in the ordinary moments long after the condolence messages stop.

And if you’re feeling it today, that’s not a setback. That’s just love with nowhere to go.

For us, you gave everything, even in sickness, until dust. Four years of unthinkable pain. The uncertainty of answering “How’s your mum?”, the varied responses that complicated my reality in ways they couldn’t understand.

You fought death and life in an unfathomable way.

And still – I am your handbag. I carry you everywhere I go.

Always My Adwoa Agyapongmaa 🙂