As you know, March is Women’s History… wait, no… I really can’t explain this again. If you are totally confused, please check my last two posts. I mean… I know you probably didn’t, you probably just continued reading, so I’ll explain… AGAIN. As you know, March is Women’s History Month, so the plan for the blog is to talk through different positive attributes and character traits every week, and highlight a woman in my life that exemplify these qualities. This week, it’s my Mamaca, my grandmother. She is the most compassionate person you will ever meet, the most elegant lady and she does it all with such style and grace. She has 7 biological children and 16 grandchildren, so that accounts for 23 out of the 614642537 people she takes care of. For most of her life, she has taken care of all these people while also juggling a full-time job as a nurse and her activities in the Catholic Church, which is pretty much like having two full time jobs. Wait, I feel like, that just made her sound dead or really, really old. “For most of her life…” She’s not. She’s 73 and She’s just retired.
When I started creating a plan for this article, I found myself struggling to decide whether to describe her character and they way she treats people as “empathetic” or “compassionate.” I was initially weary of the word “compassionate” because it is often affiliated with pity, which my Mamaca doesn’t help people out of pity. However, “compassion” also means “empathy” accompanied by action, which is the most accurate depiction of her character, so that was it. Mamaca helps people because she feels their pain and desperation, she has lived so much life that she can pretty much relate to everyone. Compassion is empathy accompanied by action. So, in this way, Mamaca is compassionate because she shows empathy and takes the time to listen, but more importantly, she accompanies her feelings with action. It is the same spirit that my Queen Julie embodies so well. So much so that I’m just now, as an adult, figuring out that most of my “uncles” are actually my uncle’s friends who needed a place to stay after university.
Over the past couple of months, I have been in Nigeria, so I have gotten the chance to visit her more often and it has been such a blessing. Almost every time I visit, she has found a new way to help someone and she is never the one who tells me about it. I found out quite recently that the people who currently rent her property have not been able to make rent in almost a year but she doesn’t fight them because she knows that they struggle. She is 73 years old but every time I visit she makes me dinner fit for a queen, no matter how hard I try to convince her not to. I think I am just now learning that although my Mamaca is not an emotional or a sentimental woman, she still shows more love than the average Joe. She is quite sarcastic but she possesses a kindness that seems to know no bounds. This is an important lesson. This is an important lesson because I often confuse love with affection, which affection is nice and affection can be an indication of love but it is not the same thing as love. Mamaca is not affectionate but this is no way diminishes the love she shows on a daily basis. I think society’s definition of love is becoming so warped and twisted and shallow and one-dimensional that a man who abuses his wife or girlfriend can so easily mask his animalistic tendencies by a few kisses and tender touches at dinner.
Mamaca continues to prove herself worthy of my utmost respect, and so effortlessly too; she has become quite the professional at putting me in my place and showing me up, sometimes, without saying a word. Like, that one time when I showed her the pictures I took in Versailles last summer, oh so proudly that I could barely get my words out, partly because I was too excited but also because I thought she won’t really understand. But I ended up stumbling on a picture of her standing in front of the Versailles castle in 1982? Or you know, that one time when I thought I was mad cute in my tiny, little dress and Mamaca told me about it, but it went over my head because I thought to my self “she is too old-fashioned?” But again, I ended up taking it back to the tailor and having a few more inches added to it. As it turns out all that fuss, all that back and forth is unnecessary because true elegance is not shouty, it has nothing to prove, it is timeless.
Elegance is a dignified or restrained beauty of form, appearance or style; an art my Mamaca has mastered. According to the Oxford Living Dictionary, it is the quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner. Manner being a person’s outward bearing or way of behaving towards others. In other words, elegance begins internally, elegance begins with a personal decision to manifest your light a certain way, to maintain a certain a level of decorum, a decision that will not be compromised by the energy or vibe or appearance or verbal decisions or actions of anyone else. Elegance is having all the power, the whole time and not letting go to prove a point or win a petty argument. Elegance is putting your personal peace before other people’s opinions of you. It is the same reason Mamaca didn’t get worked up or annoyed when my mum had to point out to me that she (Mamaca) put herself through nursing school. I didn’t think she was uncultured or uncouth or anything, I didn’t downplay her wisdom in my mind, but I guess I just assumed that she didn’t have any formal education, which is not cool.
Many times, the words “elegant” and “classy” are used interchangeably but in my opinion, there are some fundamental differences between the two, which when explored have the potential to offer clarity and highlight authenticity and depth. To begin with, elegance is all about self-respect and self-restraint, and the pursuit of classiness is superficial and deeply rooted in showmanship. True elegance nudges you to reflect on who you are as an individual and how you treat people, and trying to be classy inevitably takes you down the spiral of comparing what you have and your level of sophistication to those around you. “Classy” is often a self-acclaimed title, on Instagram, the caption “keeping it classy” has spread like wildfire because people feel the need to prove that they are the “bigger” person in whatever context or capacity.“Elegant” is more often used by a person when describing someone else, in their absence no less. “Classy” is objective, elegance isn’t. Queen Julie and Mamaca would casually without realizing, refer to a party they enjoyed as “classy,” but never the people. An event, a one-time thing SHOULD be classy, and possess a certain air of sophistication, because it will only last a couple of hours and is meant to be impressive to the guests. As a human being, a real person, choosing to live your life with the primary goal of being impressive is like trying to throw a cool party every single day, it will always be far more exhausting than just being yourself. And fortunately or unfortunately, people will always remember how you treated them over what you gave them or how you looked. Working towards elegance is significantly easier to maintain and more authentic and more organic, because the easiest person to be is yourself, like with my Mamaca, what you see is what you get and it has been that way for as long as I can remember.
My Mamaca’s name is Grace, Grace Theresa Okpiabhele, which makes all the sense in the world, because you need a well of grace to be able to half pull it off. My Mamaca carries a thousand worries on her head and in her heart but never in her smile or in her walk. She is not perfect and she never claims to be, she just enjoys the grace, the unmerited favour of God and she is almost too aware of it. Like clockwork, she begins or ends almost every sentence with “By God’s grace,” which I mean she needs it, to continue to be everything to everybody at the same time. My Mamaca enjoys the special grace of God and she works hard to make sure we all know that. I love my Mamaca, always have, but now that I am bit older, I appreciate her. I may disagree with her when she criticizes my questionable fashion choices but I know that knowing her and having her in my life makes me a better person.
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