M.

Abdessalami

Being a high school student is a great experience. It is the period when we start to
understand the world around us. It is the time of friendships, hard-headedness,
independence and … philosophy. Like most of us, I had the opportunity to live that
experience fully several years ago, and I am glad to write about it.

As if it were only yesterday, I still recall that particular hard moment when the teacher
asked us if we knew any great historical women who changed the world or contributed in
changing it. Well, for my part, I felt like I was completely blank, so I just gaped. My mouth got
idiotically wide open like a baby bird. I didn’t absolutely know any. My classmates started
shouting out names like, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Shajar al-Durr,
Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Fatima Al Fihriya and many more. I felt ashamed of myself as
I had no names to share. Actually, I was awfully terrible at History.

Shortly after that, the teacher asked us to write a paragraph about the one woman
each one of us thought she was the most powerful and influential in history. We had to
mention her achievements or legacy. All the students were exalted to hear that and
immediately bent over their papers writing something while I got stuck like a fly in a dusty
spider web. It was a real embarrassing situation for me. I had to write something too, but I
had to think of a famous female figure first. After a little while, like I was inspired, my pen
started digging its path on the paper alone and to my great astonishment, the result was
something like this,

The most influential woman of all times is that exceptional lady who patiently
and painfully gave birth to a worthless child who quickly grew up to upset her while
she usually kept her smile shining, comforting and forgiving. She is that great woman
who often had to be woken up startled in the middle of the night to look after that
same naughty child who had been screaming, afraid and shivering because he had
had a nightmare. She is the marvelous lady who looked worried when that wicked
child of hers puked or had fever or a cold. She is the outstanding person who had an
unexhausted source of love, affection and devotion for that same impish kid despite
all his mischievous acts and misconduct. She is that woman who never complained
although she had to work day and night for the comfort and the well-being of her silly
boy. She fed and entertained him while in return all that she received is only but
ingratitude and thanklessness. Despite all that she never ceased to love and cherish
him. In brief, that exceptional woman is … my mother.

M. Abdessalami
 When the teacher finished reading my paper, her tears had already been there
glittering at the inner corners of her eyelids. She sighed and said, “You are right, I guess
mothers are the most powerful people in the world at all times, thanks for reminding us of
this.” and she went back to her desk to sit still for a long time staring into space with empty
looks and probably diving deeper inside her memories. I suddenly felt that I had
accomplished something colossal that day. I saw this in the eyes of my classmates
particularly those among them who used to think I had been a loser.

We don’t really acknowledge the power of mothers until they are gone, or when girls
become mothers themselves. By the time they start to realize that their mothers played a
central role in their lives, they will have had kids who think they are just oldies with upsetting
remarks. It is simply as true as this. When we think of historical Men and Women, we have
initially to think of those powerful females who bring them to life. All in all, mothers are the
most powerful people who could change the world by upbringing kids to become great, or by
upbringing them to become destructive pests. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Men are what
their mothers made them”

And now I’d like to dedicate this paper to all the mothers in the world including those
who will soon, or in the future, become one. Mothers have always been great since the dawn
of mankind. They had been upbringing children who later on became great people. Each and
every one of those leading people (men and women) throughout history was a son or a
daughter of a mother. Thus, all among those who changed the world or took part in changing
it had tribute to the mothers who gave them birth. Therefore mothers are the most powerful
and the most influential people of all times, is that right?!

Nothing of all this has ever happened, it is merely a whisper of fiction. The American
novelist Siri Hustvedt said, “Writing fiction is like remembering what never happened”.

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The End
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M. Abdessalami