She wanted me to become a professor. One day, I’ll make her dream come true. But for now, I’m here with my pen eulogizing my mother, who truly deserves to be commended, but mostly remained unsung and unheard of, under the shadow of her family, her children.

Every month I was forced to battle through painful menstruation. I routinely had to be hospitalized. After a while my mother just kept me from school when I was having my period. I missed so much... I suffered in silence, with no one to talk to about how my life was shrinking around me.

“Mama was washing a window, papa was reading a newspaper.” Everyone who was born in the USSR knows this phrase because it is the very first we’ve learned to read. There is feminine work and masculine work. We know about it from the first images of our childhood; we received them with breast milk.

Every son loves his mother so much, and yet is taught to think of her as less than himself... But how can a son reconcile the fact that he came out of his mom? She cared for him and taught him things he can’t learn at school. It is no wonder that as Congo has set aside its women, it has set aside love for one another, peace, integrity, happiness, and a tomorrow full of hope realized.