Hartley Neita, Contributor

My mother died 15 years ago at the age of 89. My father pre-deceased her, so that when she passed on, my brothers, sister and I became orphans.

There was a vacuum in my life. Until then, there was an adult to respect. Our father was the breadwinner, but she was the anchor of our family. My father used the strap when we misbehaved. We cried. She frowned when we did anything wrong. We became silent.

She had a Singer sewing machine. She used it to make our pajamas, and our shirts and pants. Zips were not known then, so the pants she made for my brothers and I had 'pee-pee' holes. She made dresses for our sister and they were prettier than our clothes - pinks, light blues and yellows. They also had lace in front and bows at the waist.

I never learnt to cook but I did help her to bake. For years, long after I left home and until she died, she made a cake for me every Christmas. Her bread puddings were the best in the world. Today, I cannot eat anyone else's bread pudding. It had a special texture and flavour and the froth on top was yum-yum!

Enamel pot

We had to tidy the beds every morning. Hers and our father's too. We did not have indoor bathrooms then - those came with a later civilisation. At nights we had a chimmie under our beds - an enamel pot with a blue rim - and each morning it was our duty to remove it and take it to the pit latrine in the outhouse.

She taught us to pray. Every night we knelt beside the bed and prayed that Gentle Jesus would watch over us and our friends. On Sundays she guided us as we put on our church clothes. Our shoes - Clark's of England, of course - had to be polished brightly and she did not have to ask, "did you McLean your teeth today?" We did. McLean was the popular toothpaste then.

My sister and I - we were the oldest children - went with her to the village market on Saturday mornings. She knew all the vendors. They also knew her. She was after all, the wife of the teacherof their children at the school. She had a straw bankra in which she placed the heavy items she bought, such as yam, bananas, coco and plantains. My sister and I swung a basket between us and the vendors placed the scallion, thyme, pepper, gungo and other peas our mother bought. Then it was to butchers' shed. They had the nicest cuts of meat for us.

Christmas memories

Every Christmas she sewed new curtains to hang at the windows. And she told us about Santa Claus, and that if we were naughty during the year we would not get any presents from this jolly old man. We would lie on our bellies on Christmas Eve and talk and yawn to keep awake to see Santa and his sleigh. We did not have chimney at our house but that did not bother us at all.

The following morning there were the red and white Christmas stockings with a mouth organ for me, a Shirley Temple doll for my sister, a bow and arrow for my younger brother and later when the last three brothers came, they got fi-fis and snake and ladder sets, horns, revolvers with paper bullets, starlights, balloons and other goodies.

We did not celebrate Mother's Day then. It is a new invention created by florists, restaurateurs and jewellers.

'M' is for the million memories that shaped my life.

Tomorrow, there will be no mother to wish a happy Mother's Day.

But I will telephone the ladies I know with children, young and old, and wish them a joyful day. Maybe, I will also call the ladies who are not yet mothers and ask if they would like me to be their baby father! Oops!