Chimdiebube’s heartfelt celebration tribute to her mother, Nwamaka Onyemaechi Chiwuike-Uba.

I want to celebrate a woman, Nwamaka Onyemaechi Chiwuike- Uba, for who she was, not who she never got to be.

Someone I didn’t get to spend enough time with, but someone whose ten years with me I will forever cherish. The nine years I had someone to share a birthday with.

My mother was my best friend. We had our squabbles, a lot of them, but one thing I will always remember is how she treated her children like they were her friends.

My mom would sit and gist with us like we were her friends, not minding the fact that we were children. We could talk to her about almost anything. We could talk about crushes. We were never scared to tell her anything. She wasn’t the kind of mother you had to think twice about approaching. You had a boyfriend? Come and tell her. You liked someone? Be her guest.

She made it easy to be her child.

She was so jovial. One thing I doubt I will ever forget is her loud laughter and loud voice. The only reason I like my voice is because of her. If my mom was proud of hers, why should I be ashamed that I have a voice that isn’t conventionally feminine?

I am writing this as someone whose memories of her mother are either insufficient or, in some places, barely there to begin with. There are things I know about her, things I remember, and things I can only imagine. Sometimes I wonder what our relationship would have been like if I had been allowed more time with her. Who would she be to me now? What would we gist about? What would we disagree about?

But even with the little time I had, I know this much: my mother was a woman of her own.

She was Onyemaechi before anything. Before Mama Mmeso, before Nwunye Chiwuike. She was a woman who had her own life, her own ambitions, her own personality. And while I want to celebrate the woman she was before she became all these things to other people, I will always remember her as my mother, one of the reasons I am here.

Nwamaka was a woman who married my father when he had little to nothing. Something I am not even sure I could do. She was the definition of a virtuous woman, and it is sad that just when it was finally time for her to start enjoying her husband’s money and the fruits of their sacrifices, she left this world.

If anything, my parents’ love story will always be a benchmark for me.

We were never too little to know that my father adored my mother and my mother was hopelessly in love with my father. They would kiss in front of my siblings and me, and I would hide my face because I didn’t get it. 😂

I get it now. Or at least, I think I do.

My mother was a hustler. She hated sitting at home. Today, she would be opening a bakery, and a while later, she would have a shop for something else. She was always doing something, always looking for something to do.

And then there were her children.

The centre of her world.

She loved us so much, and she made sure we knew it. I doubt my mom could leave the house without getting something for us. She was the kind of mother who thought about her children even when they weren’t there. The kind who wanted to bring something home for them.

I have a distinct memory of my mom from when I was in nursery school. We had waited long past school hours for her to come and pick us up. Our teachers called her, but there was no response. About two hours later, my mom walked into the school and casually explained that she had been held up at the police station because something was missing when they checked her car documents.

And I remember crying and repeatedly telling her I was sorry.

But my mom?

She was badass about the whole thing. She seemed unfazed. Her only worry was that she had kept us waiting at school for so long.

That was my mother. At least, that is how I remember her. Whatever had happened, she walked in, and there she was. And somehow, even as a child, I could see that she wasn’t going to let the situation get the better of her.

But perhaps I should talk about the woman who encouraged my love for cooking.

I started cooking when I was four. Mostly noodles. They would keep a chair in the kitchen, and I would climb it. 😂

By six, I had made my first proper meal: jollof rice.

My siblings said it didn’t have enough salt, but my mother said it was the best food she had ever tasted. And she was proud of me. Before then, the only thing I was allowed to make was noodles, so this was a big deal.

I wonder if the period when I stopped cooking would have happened if things were different. Would I still have someone who was excited about the things I made, even when they weren’t perfect? Someone who would make me feel like I had done something extraordinary when all I had done was make a pot of jollof rice?

I don’t know.

I just know that she was proud of me, and that I remember it.

And that is one of the things about losing someone when you are so young. You don’t get to keep making memories with them. You are left with the ones you have, and sometimes you spend years discovering how much those memories mean to you.

My mother was also so welcoming.

Our house was always full. There was always someone coming over, something happening, someone who needed something. She would organise charity outreaches where she gave clothes to women who needed them. I don’t know for sure, but it’s very possible that people who had clothes they no longer needed gave them to my mom because she always seemed to know someone who needed something.

Today, it would be women she had gathered to help. Tomorrow, it would be a prayer session. There was always something happening in our house, and as a child, I was honestly annoyed. I didn’t understand why we always had people over. Couldn’t people just stay in their own houses? 😂

I understand a little better now.

Then there were the hospital outreaches. These were things she seemed to decide to do because she felt they needed to be done. Somehow, she would find a way to fit them into her schedule.

Every Tuesday, she would park her car and walk to a hospital close to our house to visit women who were in labour and people who were in the hospital but couldn’t afford to pay their bills.

I remember the first and last time I went with her. I kept asking why we couldn’t just go with the car.

But my mom’s car didn’t have a place in her life on Tuesdays. 😂

Looking back, I think about how much of her life was spent making room for other people. There were always people to help, women to gather, someone to visit, something to give. And she did it alongside everything else she had going on.

As a child, all I saw was a house that was never empty and a mother who always seemed to have somewhere to go or someone to attend to. I didn’t understand it then. I didn’t understand why our home had to be open to so many people, why there was always another outreach, another gathering, another person who needed something.

I wish I could ask her about it now.

She had a good heart. Too good, in fact. And one thing I worry about is whether she was appreciated enough while she was here.

I want to think that all the people who came into our house, people who used the same spoons and plates with her and her children, all the people she went out of her way to help, all the hospital visits, all the things she did because she felt someone was deserving of it. I want to think they understood how much of herself she gave.

I want to think they saw her. Not just as the woman who gave them clothes, or the woman who visited them in the hospital, or the woman who opened her home to them. But as a person. A woman who had her own dreams, her own struggles, her own things she wanted out of life.

A woman who deserved to be loved and cared for just as much as she loved and cared for other people.

Because sometimes, when you are the person who is always giving, people get so used to receiving from you that they forget you are human, too.

I hope that wasn’t the case with her. I hope she knew how much she meant to people. I hope she knew how much she was loved.

I wish I had more time with her. More conversations, more gists, more squabbles. More opportunities to know her not just as my mother, but as Nwamaka Onyemaechi Chiwuike Uba.

The woman who had a loud voice and an even louder laugh. The woman who hustled. The woman who loved my father. The woman who encouraged a little girl to cook and thought her jollof rice was the best food she had ever tasted, even when her siblings disagreed.

The woman who made her children feel like they could tell her anything.

I didn’t get enough time with her. I know that. And there are so many things I will never get to know about her, so many conversations we will never have.

But I got ten years.

Nine years of sharing a birthday with her.

And I got a mother who made me proud of my voice, who encouraged my love for cooking, who loved her children loudly, and who gave me a glimpse of the kind of love I hope to find someday.

So today, I want to celebrate Nwamaka.

Not just Mama Mmeso. Not just Nwunye Chiwuike.

Nwamaka Onyemaechi Chiwuike-Uba.

The woman she was, the woman she became, and the woman I wish I had more time to know.