Important role of mothers in our life

Like many women of the yesteryears, my mother didn’t receive any certificates or degrees and was married at the age of twelve. But she was my first teacher. I remember the small chair that she sat me on in the kitchen and the big spoon that she would wave while she cooked and read the Qur’an in a loud voice, teaching me to read before I was even four. When I entered the first grade at school, all of my teachers were amazed at my reading skills and how I read the Qur’an with such clarity. So this was my first school and my first teacher.
I started my formal school education at Baba Abbas Ghazawi School, I remember specifically one day when we watched a movie at school through a projector on a huge screen. All of the children sat watching the legendary actors of the time in which we grew up.
I grew up and my dreams grew with me. As mentioned earlier, my mother did not receive any formal education, but she managed to offset this by reading. I can’t remember a time in my life that I didn’t see her with a newspaper, book or reading literary works. She used to keep all of her books in a huge library for her two daughters. She inculcated in us the love of science and sanctity for knowledge. She instilled in us the ambition and the importance of excellence and getting high grades.
My father’s side of the family opposed our plans to receive higher education but our mother did not allow them to interfere with our lives and encouraged us to continue our studies. Even after the death of our father, she displayed immense courage and continued to support us in our educational pursuits.
That opposition, however, did not last long. In fact, our relatives themselves allowed their daughters to join schools and universities. I remember when some of my relatives came to visit us one night and brought with them a man in his fifties. I heard them talking to my mom when she was still in Iddah, (the waiting period that a woman must observe after the death of her husband), as I sat outside the door. They told her that the man would make a good husband for her daughter. I remember her refusing and crying saying that she is only a girl. My uncle also refused and we severed our ties with those relatives.
After the death of our father, we had to leave our villa and moved into a small apartment. We had to change our school from a model private school to a public middle school. It truly was an upside down change. But when I recollect those memories, I feel that whatever happened to us made us stronger and wiser and helped us to move forward in life.
I should admit that our mother played a crucial role in our lives. If it were not for her, I would not have excelled in life.