Shivan Martha

In 2002 I was young newly married , in a foreign country where i had no family or friends. It was just me and my husband at the time. When I conceived my first child, my best friend Lydia was the first to know. I then later told my mother at about two months into the pregnancy. For some reason, i was always so shy about my mother seeing me pregnant, and fortunately or unfortunately she never saw me ever through out both my pregnancies. For my first child, maama did not even speak to me at all from around three months through out my pregnancy until my son was four and a half months old. I would have loved to receive that “Kulika omwana” message or for her to be present when I had this baby. Maama had all the good reasons not to speak to me, I had failed to meet her expectations! I had processed visas for her and half brother Nicholas to travel to the UK, contributed what I could towards their air tickets ( half ), it was not enough but that’s all I could afford. This did not sit well with maama who ranted why I married a man that did not give me money and went on to point out that; “oba Namubiru a gamba talina sente nga alya!” I learnt about their arrival in the UK three weeks after they arrived , and it’s their host who informed me because , to my greatest shock, maama made it clear to her that she did not wish to speak to me . Four and a half months after my son was born I received a call from maama a few minutes after her host had called me to let me know that my mother was beaten up at work by a friend who helped her get that job ,and how she deserved the beating. “Hello”, I answered. “ wamma twalwanye nange ne nemuluma…..” said the voice on the other end of the line which I recognised in a second. No greetings, no questions about my life or my baby, nothing. That call only came because the lady who beat up my mother threatened to tell me all and the cause of their fight. “ Ne muwalawo ngenda kumugamba”, she threatened. They indeed told me , and I can not say that’s the best news I ever wanted to hear about my mother . All that , MY MOTHER KNOWS! #MyMotherKnows #memoir #JourneyToMyHealing #NarcissisticParents #abusiveparents