Black History Month: In Honour of My Mother

The phone rang. My brother’s voice was steady, but I could hear the weight behind it. In November 2014, just five months after relocating to Canada, I received the call that changed everything – my mother was gone.

 

As we observe Black History Month, we do more than commemorate the past – we affirm that Black history is alive, evolving, and woven into the fabric of our present.

 

It is a time to honour resilience, triumph, and the quiet strength of those who paved the way – not only in grand milestones, but in the small, everyday acts of courage that so often go unnoticed. While we celebrate the trailblazers – the firsts, the pioneers, the history-makers – we must also recognize the countless unsung figures whose strength has shaped generations. Black history is not only written in books or carved into monuments; it also lives in the people who faced challenges, made sacrifices, and loved deeply despite hardship. It lives in the quieter, everyday "firsts" that shape lives in profound ways – the ripples that do not make headlines but matter deeply to those who experience them.

 

And sometimes, those ripples come from the people we love. Today, I want to share with you one such ripple – my mother. Her strength never made headlines, but it shaped my world. On her death certificate, under cause of death, it read “asphyxiation,” the final toll of throat cancer.

 

In his poem “Yes,” Rudy Francisco questions, “You wonder if you will ever breathe again.” It’s a question that lingers in loss. But the irony? My mother was never one to be silenced. Never one to be out of breath. Even in her quietest moments, her presence, her will and her voice carried weight. And though she is gone, her story – like so many untold histories – continues to shape the present. So, as Francisco answers, "Yes, you will."

 

I remember a lesson she taught me in Grade 3. Our school in Accra, Ghana held an annual end-of-year event where every student was expected to present a craft – something we had made ourselves as a mark of our creativity. Of course, being the student that I was, I gave it no thought until the night before, when panic set in. I begged my mother for help. She simply smiled and carried on with her business. I went to bed but did not sleep a wink. By morning, I had made myself sick with worry, anticipating the shame that would greet me through the taunts of my classmates – who, in Grade 3, were not polite kids.

 

But just as I resigned myself to the humiliation that awaited, she handed me a small object – a tiny hat, fashioned from nothing more than papier-mâché, Kleenex, and soft tissue wrappings, finished with a single lace band. Simple. Elegant. Complete. She never told me not to panic. She never said, "Things will work out." She simply showed me. That was my mother.

 

When my father, an esteemed diplomat, suffered a career-ending stroke at 40 while we were living in Ottawa, she didn’t hesitate. With only a middle school education, she stepped in and raised four children – almost singlehandedly. Back in Ghana, she knew her fate was in her own hands – literally. Those hands created, mended, and nourished – knitting, crocheting, cooking, and, most of all, baking. And thanks to her, my sweet tooth is beyond repair.

 

She would wake before dawn, mixing batter, firing up her industrial-sized oven (an oven that, thanks to my curiosity, once left me with singed eyebrows … but that’s a story for another time), and preparing her confections. Then, she would load up her Datsun 210 hatchback, drive 20 kilometres to her selling spot, and work until every last doughnut, meat pie and muffin was sold. Day in, day out, for years — well after my siblings and I finished university. And even then, she did not stop.

 

At our boarding school, Mfantsipim — once attended by Kofi Annan, the late UN Secretary-General — her doughnut-laden car was an anticipated welcome. Whenever she rolled onto campus, we knew she would leave it sweeter — both in spirit and in the good helping of pastries she always left behind. Needless to say, we were never short of “do-not friends.”

 

She would often come home after a long day of sales and casually mention how yet another “classmate” of ours — someone we had never seen, never spoken to, and were fairly certain had never set foot in our classroom — had somehow strolled up to her stall, reminisced about “old times,” and walked off with a free parcel of pastries. “It spoils nothing,” she would say whenever we pointed out that her generosity was, in fact, bad for business.

 

Years later, when my siblings and I decided it was time for her to retire, we bought her a brand-new luxury car and took away the beat-up Datsun. We thought we had retired her. We were wrong. She took one look at that luxury car and saw potential — not for comfort, but for commerce. By the next week, it was a confectionery on wheels. Because nothing — not age, not circumstance, and certainly not a so-called "retirement car" – could stop her.

 

Finally, in her seventies, after years of our pleading, she slowed down. But even then, she launched herself into real estate, buying commercial property – just in case one of us might one day need a space to sell her pastries. That never happened! Instead of a bakery legacy, she raised an accountant, a management consultant, and another accountant. As for me?  Well, I suppose I am the one who tells her story.

 

Black History Month is often marked by the remembrance of struggle and the recognition of milestones achieved. But it is also a celebration – of excellence, entrepreneurship, and vision. These values transcend race, colour, and creed. They live in the personal stories of struggle and achievement shared by our friends, family members, and colleagues. We make it a point to remember — because remembrance reinforces, reinvigorates, revitalizes, and, most of all, inspires us to create ripples in life. Who has created a ripple in yours? And behind these ripples, behind the quiet strength that shapes our communities, stand the unsung heroines and heroes – the foundation upon which we stand.

 

In her last days – mercifully brief – I received a call from my older brother, who sat by her bedside. She could no longer speak, but I understood. She was saying goodbye. And in that moment, I knew: her ripple – her strength, her resilience, her unwavering generosity – would carry forward. It was never just about her. It was about the lives she touched, the lessons she left behind, and the quiet but lasting impact of a life well lived.

 

Thank you, Comfort Afua Mansa Andoh.

 

Your ripple endures.