Today, a Sunday, happens to be a celebration of two events – Mothers Day (in Australia) and it is also Magucha’s birthday. She would have been 68 today.
I’m pulled in two directions – to celebrate the fact that motherhood is celebrated partly because it is something that no man can fully understand and also that this is not only Magucha’s birthday but that she is no longer in this world to share it with us.
Motherhood, in fact life generally wasn’t easy in Zimbabwe (still known as Rhodesia in those far off days) but I did try my best to support Magucha in what was a very difficult time for her. She was married to a non-Portuguese speaker (me), in a "foreign country" (Zimbabwe) without close family or her mother’s support. Her mother did eventually fly out from Portugal to lend support. That didn’t last long and after a few weeks she returned to Portugal – I’m not sure of the reasons now but I believe it was because of the (usual) arguments that erupted between the two and my dedicated support of Magucha wouldn’t have helped smooth over the daily "eruptions".
Magucha was a devoted mother. She was so proud of firstly (against all medical advice) falling pregnant and then producing a beautiful daughter. The fear expressed by her doctor was that her already compromised kidneys would fail thereby threatening the lives of both mother and child.
I’ve written about this before but when Magucha’s waters broke and I took her to what was then known as the Lady Chancellor Maternity Hospital, I was presented with a document to sign. If a "medical situation" arose that threatened the life of either mother or baby or both did I want the mother to live at the "expense" of the baby or did I want the baby to live at the "expense" of the mother!
That was the most difficult decision I’ve ever been called upon to make! I knew that if Magucha lived at the "expense" of the baby, she would never have forgiven me. That I know for certain – it would have always been a dark shadow over our relationship, even if that could continue.
On the other-hand what was I supposed to do, as a working single parent in Zimbabwe, with a new-born baby and a 7yr old son? My mother was too old to be of much assistance, and in any event she and my father were living in a retirement home some 60 km away.
Fortunately the stars must have been properly aligned because both survived. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
So I now celebrate the two – a birthday and Mothers Day – but without the person directly involved.
And by way of celebration I (as is my usual way) offer this poem – for mothers everywhere and especially for Magucha – that poor girl suffered ill health for as long as I knew her.
The Anvil
Stand like a beaten anvil, when thy dream
Is laid upon thee, golden from the fire.
Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleam
The black forge-hammers fall on thy desire.
Demoniac giants round thee seem to loom.
‘Tis but the world-smiths heaving to and fro.
Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doom
Their ponderous weapons deal thee, blow on blow.
Needful to truth as dew-fall to the flower
Is this wild wrath and this implacable scorn.
For every pang, new beauty, and new power,
Burning blood-red shall on thy heart be born.
Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth’s wrong
Beat on that iron and ring back in song.
Alfred Noyes
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