This is my mother Zarina Kanji’s story. She was born in 1940 in Nairobi, Kenya to Nurbanu and Suleman Kassam. She is second generation Kenyan. Her paternal grandfather settled in Africa having arrived from India. She has five brothers and four sisters. Three brothers and 1 sister have passed on. She is the 7th child.
One of my earliest memories of my mother is how she would put in my contact lens (named “Mike”) every morning when I was three years old. How I would endlessly tell her, “I think I lost Mike,” whereupon she would search my eye and say, “look up, look down” until my eye would begin to water and she would say, “Don’t worry, it’s okay, Mike’s just taking abath”. I would continuously lose Mike; my mother would continuously search. And inevitably she would find Mike.
Wilamina Becker, my mommy, was born on August 27, 1926 on a tobacco farm outside Momart, Saskatchewan. Her mother, Francesca (my namesake) had an incident with a married Scotsman in a barn when she was 16. Lots of mystery around the Scotsman. Anyway, to try to escape the shame surrounding this incident, Francesca’s parents moved the family to a farm in Surrey, BC.
When she was a young girl, my mother, Phyllis Kathleen Vine dreamed of becoming a dancer. In rare moments my normally reserved mother would extend her arms and pose in the most graceful of ways. Whenever she did this, I couldn't help but smile, picturing her as a young girl in the exact same pose. Being one of a large family, this never happened for her.
My mother’s life divides neatly into chapters, but it’s far from an open book. I never know which details of her stories are richly embroidered and which are more or less told as they happened. An actress by nature and profession, she is a born storyteller. Any oral history inevitably reshapes truth as fiction, so when she said to me, “you don’t know anything about my life,” I assume she meant I understand only what she intends me to.
When I was a teenager, alone with my boyfriend in the drawing room, we would suddenly hear Mother singing the Christian hymn “Rock of Ages” in her glorious contralto voice—a warning that we had to behave ourselves before she entered the room.
My mother, Bodil Ingegerd Malmstrom, was born in Malmo, in southern Sweden, on January 25th 1930. She was the second of four daughters for Ture, a middle class clothing merchant, and his wife, Elsa.
Two years ago, my brother, two sisters, my husband and myself were all retired. None of us have nine to five jobs. We all acknowledge this with smug self satisfied little smiles and self congratulatory glints in our half shut eyes. In this same year, my 85 year old mother, was laid off from her job. She is a legal secretary. Her boss turned 91 and felt that he only needed one of his two employees, as work is not as abundant as he hoped. My mom was devastated.
Multipe sclerosis is a neurological disease that attacks the nerves. Now considered one of the autoimmune diseases, there haven’t been any major advances or cures in the six years since Mummy died in 1998 at age 78. Even before that it was considered a mystery. Doctors agree however that people with MS should try to reduce the stress in their lives as much as possible.
My mother is the Queen of non sequiturs, talks through my plays, takes photos of everything, sets a good table, rages against spilt milk, is stubbornly eccentric and a good person to have with you in an emergency. I feel like I’m her when I’m sitting up straight, pulling on a fingernail, watching the crowd with a half smile, unsure whether to join in or flee.