Elza Irdalynna
My mother not only has gone through a lot, she had to do it all in the public eye. The most recent and ongoing challenge being her battle with cancer.
And baby
Everytime you touch me
I become a hero
I’ll make you safe
No matter where you are
(Diana Ross – When You Tell Me That You Love Me)
What does it mean to be a hero? Is it someone who rescues another from harm? Is it someone who protects us? Is it someone who saves us from a life of suffering? Is it someone who inspires our lives?
Is a mother not all of the above?
My relationship with my mother is interesting. Of course I share the same admiration towards her as everyone else does for their own mother. The difference is my mother is a public figure. To a certain extent, my relationship with her is also shared with the public.
Many ask me what it’s like to have a famous actress as a mother. My reply is always “I don’t know. I have no other mother to compare my experience to.” I suppose the major difference is the lack of privacy.
When I was younger I would sulk anytime a fan came up to us to take pictures while we were eating or out on holiday for example. I didn’t understand that those incidents happened only because so many adored and respected her.
My mother is a strict disciplinarian. When it came to school and household chores, I dreaded being scolded because I thought “Mama doesn’t love me, she cares more about my duties than my feelings.”
Little did I know how much more she hated doing the scolding. She would often tell me how she did parenting the only way she knew how – the old school method of punishing that she received from her parents. And only now as an adult do I see that she was preparing me to be independent.
But she always tried her best to better herself as a parent with each passing day. She was harder on herself than anyone else. A mother’s biggest fear (apart from the child being in danger, of course) is that her child will make the same mistakes she did. They protect us as best as they can from the pain they went through as a younger, naïve girl.
My mother not only has gone through a lot, she had to do it all in the public eye. The most recent and ongoing challenge being her battle with cancer.
Despite being a health freak, cancer hit her in 2006. Through the years, from the breast it had spread to her spine and brain. Last month her brain tumor was successfully removed. But the fight still carries on. And when the end comes, the nation will share my grief.
Unwavering courage
And through all this, I have come to see what an amazing mother she is to so many people, and not just to my siblings and me.
Her struggle, her never relenting spirit and her unwavering courage has inspired so many from all walks of life, be it cancer patients themselves or their families. She has never allowed cancer to own or define her.
Why, at the recent general election, she carried out her duties to vote by going to the polling station in an ambulance, barely a week after returning home from brain surgery.
I look back at my teenage years and I realize how much I misunderstood my mother. We share many similarities (like our stubbornness) and that tends to lead to heated fights. We’d both cry our eyes out but now I understand it was because we both wanted the other to be on our team.
Our opinions may vary due to the generation gap but we’d both lay our lives on the line for the other.
So why am I writing this for Mother’s Day? It’s because I believe all of us too quickly judge and blame our mothers before we take the time to see where they’re coming from.
I don’t believe mothers are always right, but they sure have the right intentions. They’ve defined their entire adulthood around the lives of their children. They deserve more than just a day of celebration and gifts.
They deserve your empathy and understanding. Despite their own challenges, they chose to be mothers first.
They chose to be our heroes. Mine just didn’t stop being a hero at home. Thank you, Mama, for never giving up on us, on me and on yourself. Here’s to you.
Elza Irdalynna writes about art, love, and other things she pretends to understand. She is also an FMT columnist. Popular actress Azean Irdawaty is her mother.