A tribute to my adopted mum

A tribute to my adopted mum

 

By Patrick Matbob

This is a personal piece I wrote about my adopted mum who died in February 2000.

 ABOUT 10 years ago, my adopted mum began talking about her death. She was convinced that she would die because she was well into her seventies - well past the 

 

Sons Manzo, Nathan & adopted yas.

average life expectancy age in PNG and was frequently ill. Each time I came home for holidays, I would visit her. When it was time to leave, she would remind me that I was seeing her for the last time.

“When you are in Port Moresby, you will hear the news of my death,” she would tell me confidently. But the news never came.

This year I quit my job in Port Moresby. After years of putting up with the stresses of city life, I headed home with my family. It took a few days to settle into village life. On the first Sunday, I visited my adopted mum. Unlike before she was unable to move or talk and remained in her house. Old age had caught up with her. But as usual she was happy to see me and my family.

I was planning to visit her again the following Sunday. However, that Saturday my sister in-law arrived with the sad news. My adopted mum had just passed away in her sleep at about midday.

I rushed over to her home. She lay on her bed on the floor of her tiny room. I raised the sheet gently from her face. Her body was still warm. Her wrinkled, weather-beaten face was relaxed in a smile. It seemed death had not visited her yet. I wondered why she smiled? At the foot of her bed was a statue of the Virgin Mary. Did the mother of Jesus come to receive her? She was a deeply religious person.

 As I was going through her meagre belongings to prepare her for burial, a brown bed spread still in its wrapper dropped out. My heart missed a beat as I recognised the package. No, it couldn’t be, I muttered to myself. My eyes moistened, as I realised this was a bedspread I had bought for her ten years ago at the old Burns Philp shop in Boroko. The shop had long since burnt down. She had kept it because she wanted her body to be wrapped up in it for burial. Her wish was going to be finally granted.

As we waited for relatives to come to mourn, I headed for a quiet moment by the seaside. Out on the reef edge, giant breakers from the Bismarck Sea thundered and crashed in regular monotony, drowning the cries of the hunting seagulls. These were sights and sounds she would have been familiar with all her life.

My adopted mum lived all her life in the village. After she had her first child, her husband died many years ago. She did not marry again. Instead she adopted me into her family. As I came from a fairly large family, I welcomed the luxury of a second home.

There was, however, nothing luxurious about her home. Being a widow, she hardly had any money and very little else. But it did not matter. Her gardens, the sea and the bush provided her needs. When she needed money she would sell her betelnut or garden crops.

 I always treasured those school holidays I spent with my adopted mum. My natural family never lived in the village because dad was a teacher and worked in other provinces and parts of Madang. It was through my adopted family that I lived in the village at an early age. I was able to grow crops in the garden, go hunting and plant my own betelnut palms. I even had my own pigs.

I realised that the death of my adopted mum had closed a chapter in my life. I had enjoyed a close relationship with her family because of my status as an adopted son.

But the situation would never be the same again. Like in other Melanesian societies, her death nullified that special status I had enjoyed with her family.

Still I would always be grateful to her for the special privilege of a second home and a second mum.

I know she had always loved me as her own. For her, I was not an adopted child. I was the second son she never had.