Don't Feel Guilty, Ma

This piece was performed live in the IONA Women's Conference 2019, dedicated to mothers. Video of performance included.

Asalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu
May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you

For my poem today, I wanted to focus on the most essential way women build communities.
As I’m sure this applies to every human being on this planet.

I was just wondering
if you remember
The first time you cried?
The first time you wailed in the middle of the night?
Do you remember
The first time you opened your eyes?
Do you remember
The moment you took in your first breath of life?
I sure don’t.
But I know some people who might.
Who else?
Our mothers.
Subhanallah.
Allah is perfect.

For those of us too young to understand,
For those of us who give all mothers out there just a little bit more of a hard time
Inshallah, God-willing I hope this is a wake-up call

This kind of unconditional care is so beautiful and incomparable
Sometimes I think it’s irrational, illogical, it doesn’t make any sense
Think about it

For nine complete months of our existence.
Do you know any other person who has been there in your life
Sacrificing their entire being, their whole body, just to feed you
Literally carrying you around everywhere they go
No matter how much you weigh them down
No matter how many organs you juggle around in there
Everything that they do in those nine months are just for you

Can you name a single person who has done that much for you even for a single day?
You stretched your mother’s body so far that it will never go back to the way it was before
You sometimes gave her insecurities that she may never recover from
And because she knows that this is what it takes
That this is what she has to sacrifice to hold you in her arms
She withstands it

I recently had the chance to witness childbirth in person
Shukr Alhamdulillah
All thanks and praise be to Allah
I don’t remember a time
Where my heart could’ve been more touched.

Do you know how scary it is?
Sitting on a hospital bed
Feeling the pain of contracting muscles
Having to take some of the strongest doses of medicine to keep the pressure at bay
Sometimes having that medicine stop working in the middle of the process
This woman
She cries
She worries
She prays
Hoping she’ll hold her baby in her arms
And wondering whether she should
If it comes down to it
tell someone to save the baby over her own self
Imagine making that decision
Would you choose your mother over your own self
If it came down to it?
Astaghfirullah
May Allah forgive us

Do you know how long it takes?
Yet how quick it goes?
How much a mother has to work to bring you into this world?
How long she has to push you until you set yourself free.
And if she’s not pushing she’s being torn open.
For you.

Covered in scars and stitches
Blood and fallen tears
Filled with worries and fear
All for you.
Barakallahu feeha
May Allah bless her

And when we come out
All we do is literally suck the energy out of her
With all that pooping and crying.
With all the ungratefulness and whining.
She still loves you

And in this day and age
A mother has to do much more than stay at home
And coddle you in her arms,
She wants to fawn over you,
She wants to use what Allah gave her and feed you
To relish in you, this precious gift from the heavens that she received
To do everything for you and more

But sometimes she has to work
She is sometimes the breadwinner as well as the housekeep
She has to spread herself paper thin to reach all of your needs
She wants to see you
But she has to leave you at home
Or in the daycare
All alone
And she feels guilty for it

Don’t feel guilty ma
​
And I know our mothers would never stand up here and lecture about how hard it was for her
Because she knows we’re worth it

And I know people say you only ‘get it’ when you go through the process of having a child for yourself
I just wish sometimes we didn’t need to feel the pain to understand what she goes through
Ya Allah guide us
Rabbir ham humma kama rabayyani sagheerah
Rabbir ham humma kama rabayyani sagheerah
O Allah! Give your Mercy to my parents as they took care of me when I was small
Ameen

-Hawa Rahman