Happy Birthday, Mama Girl.
Before the titles, before the awards, before any of it, you were Mama Girl. That is still the biggest thing on the list, and it is the whole reason for this page.
Akotia Gladys
Presiding Member, Sefwi Juaboso
Women's Commissioner, National Association of Assembly Members
The part that makes us proud
And out there, she is somebody.
At home she is just Mama Girl. But we know what she does when she leaves the house, and we are proud of it. She would never list these herself, so we will do it for her.
and goodwill
and resourcefulness
linked together
One more award, from a much smaller committee
They gave you one in 2024. This one is for the other job.
The awards out there are for the work. This one is for what you have been at home, all along, for far longer.
Citation
Mother of the Year
Presented to
Akotia Gladys
Known in one house, by one person, simply as Mama Girl
Whereas she has been a mother first, before and above every title she has ever carried;
Whereas she has raised children who are proud to say whose children they are;
Whereas she has never let anybody in this house go through a hard week feeling alone in it;
Whereas a student far from home has never once told her that things were tight and been left that way;
Whereas the help has never been only money, and the part that mattered most was that she never made him feel like a burden for asking;
Whereas she goes out into the world and does things that make her family sit up and point, and then comes home and is simply Mama Girl again;
Now therefore, this award, which has no committee, no ceremony and no budget, is presented for the one office she has held longest and best: being my mother.
Every single time
I call. You ask how school is going. Then you ask what I need.
University is not cheap and it is not easy, and there have been weeks where I did not know how the next one was going to work. I would call you, and somehow, from somewhere, you would find something and send it.
But if I am honest, the money is not the part I will remember. The part I will remember is that you never once made me feel small for asking. You never sighed. You never made me explain myself twice. You just handled it, and then you asked if I was eating.
That is a kind of support that does not show up in any record of service, and it is the one I have needed most.
A letter
You are just a good mother. That is the whole thing.
People will talk about the positions and the award, and they should. But none of that is why I made this. I made it because you have been a good mother to me, steadily, for as long as I have been alive, and I do not think I have ever sat you down and said it properly.
You are the one who checks. You are the one who notices when my voice sounds off on the phone before I have said anything is wrong. You look after people without being asked, and you have never once made looking after us feel like a duty you were performing. It just seems to be who you are.
That is the other thing I want you to know. We are proud of you. When people mention your name and I get to say that is my mother, it does something to me. You did not do any of it for attention, which is exactly why it lands the way it does. You go out, you carry yourself well, you do the work, and you come back and ask if we have eaten.
So today, please do less. Sit down. Let somebody serve you for once. Be celebrated by the people who love you, and let it settle in properly that you are appreciated, not for what you achieve, but for who you have been to us.
Happy birthday, Mama Girl. May this year be as kind to you as you have been to everybody around you. May you get rest you did not have to ask for. And may you always have somebody who picks up for you, the way you have always picked up for me. I am really, really glad you are my mother.
With all my love,
Your son
Where all of this started
The day you brought me here.
Out of every photo on this page, this is the one I would keep.
You did not just send me to school. You walked me in.
Everything that has happened since then started here. The hard weeks, the calls, the times things were tight and you sorted it out anyway. All of it traces back to you standing next to me on this day.
When this place gets heavy, I think about this picture. It reminds me that I did not arrive here on my own, and that somebody who loves me is watching how it goes.
Now make a wish, and make it yours.
You have spent the whole year wishing for other people. Take one minute and wish for yourself. Nobody is going to interrupt you.
Moved, seconded, and carried. Happy birthday, Mama Girl.