A Mothers Prayer for 2017

Kirsty Lemare - 23 Dec 16

A Mothers Prayer for 2017

“We do not need guns and bombs to bring about peace, but love and compassion” …Mother Theresa

It’s Christmas eve eve.  The shopping is done, the house is clean and the presents wrapped.  Normally I’m in my element decorating cakes, crafting with the kids and settling in for family time.

But this year feels slightly hollow.  I still love the lights, the food, the festivities. I’ve worked brutal hours for months to afford Santa’s visits and the right to take a break.

But I can’t shake the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of people are not celebrating.  That the season of peace and goodwill to all men is a farce.

If 2016 goes down in history as anything, it will be the year that the world took a huge step back in terms of human growth.

Terrorist atrocities the world over. Wealthy countries with access to huge resources refusing entry to children fleeing war.  A racist, misogynistic bigot voted by the ‘everyman’ as leader of the most powerful ‘advanced’ country in the world, due in no small part to the political machinations of a man whose key goal is to drag the world back to the cold war era.

If ever there was a year to remember the real message of the festive season this would be it.  Instead, newsfeeds are filled with stories of women on benefits spending money on their kids, engendering more hatred.

After all, if you need to take your eyes off the corrupt wealthy, dividing the working poor is an effective first step. Does it matter who spends what?  Not really.

I wasn’t sure about writing this piece.  I don’t want to depress anyone.  I don’t want to sound worthy.  I don’t want you to feel guilty.  I don’t want to bore you.  I don’t want to feel sad and I don’t want you to either.

I don’t feel in any way qualified to write about the complexities of Syria, or middle east peace and the time of joy and merriment probably isn’t the best time to try.

But I don’t really think I need to.

I’m a business woman, a friend, a daughter and wife.  I’m a mother.  What I lack in ‘clever’ political knowledge, I make up for by knowing something far more important.

I know what it means to feel the spark of life grow inside me. To feel my body wracked with agony to deliver that spark into being.  Giving birth might be the most average, ordinary of miracles, but it’s a miracle nonetheless.

I know what it means to watch a newborn sleep and to be so scared that they won’t make it through an hour without breaking that you hold mirrors over their tiny faces to check they’re still breathing.

I’ve known what it means to celebrate the firsts and to cry through the challenges.  I watch my boys grow and change every day and I chronicle their development with the same attention a scientist pays to his most precious research.  If they feel joy, I feel joy.  If they feel pain, I feel pain.

I know what it means to value life.  Because I made it. And the idea that it would be torn from me for a man’s war fills me with a horror so wide I can’t bring myself to really look at it.  And it fills me with fury for the women who have no choice.

Earlier this year I sent my son to the shop for the first time alone.  I spent the whole twenty minutes visualising all the things that could go wrong, the bogey men hiding behind every corner.  I pinned myself down not to follow him.  Imagine being the woman sending her precious spark across the world alone, through untold terrors, never knowing if she’ll see him again because it’s his only chance to survive.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a Muslim mother, or a Syrian one, or a mother who voted for Trump or a mother frightened of immigration.

I don’t know what it means to choose between staying in a war zone or facing the ocean at the mercy of traffickers.

I do know that once upon a time all of these mothers felt what I did, though.  They felt the spark of life.  Of potential.  Of growth and of hope.  None of us gives birth to create hate.  We don’t give birth to lose our children under fire.  Or to leave them alone to cross the world.

As mothers we fight like tigers to keep our children safe, to get them what they need, to encourage them to do their best.  But we don’t have to fight one another.

We don’t give birth to raise terrorists.  To bring fear. To create divides.  Our skin colours, religions,  economics and political beliefs may divide us but one thing, for the majority at least remains constant.  Our desire for the best for our children. That they feel as little pain, and as much joy as possible.

As deep-seated hatred threatens to tear us apart in 2017, that is my hope, my wish, my prayer.  That we remember that no matter where we all go in life, our fundamental desire as mothers remains the same.

If I know anything, I know this.  All our children deserve the same rights.  The rights to life, to education, to joy and to freedom.  To peace and to safety. To dream.

May all your children enjoy that this Christmas and may 2017 see us finally stand together to demand the same for mothers the world over.

Kirsty Lemare

Kirsty is the editor of Beyond Fabulous and a digital brand strategist. She enjoys healthy living, regular meditation and knows she is #blessed. Only joking, she's a borderline drunk with a chocolate habit and a waistline growing faster than the national debt. She's quite fun though and she really likes shoes. Oh, and she is the harried owner of two children, two cats, one dog, and a husband.

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