Thank you mom for your sacrifices
Published:Monday | May 10, 2021 | 12:05 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam
Happy Mother’s Day, Rev. Bernella McKenzie and all mothers who believe in their children and spent the time to invest in their future.
As we get set to celebrate mothers on Mother’s Day, I have to say thank you to my mommy for seeing the potential in me and investing in my education and literacy. When I was younger, I could not read, write or spell at age level. I remember my mom praying “God what kind of children you give me”.
But my mother took me to Jamaica Library Service in Spanish Town, Saint Catherine, Jamaica, from the age of six almost everyday (and every summer), where she worked, and signed us up, my twin brother and me, for every programme and invested in our education as she raised six children in a fledgling Jamaican economy. It all began when my mother, and also my former professor at Jamaica Theological Seminary David Pearson asked us, his ethics students, to write a letter to The Gleaner in 2001. He said if it’s published, we’ll get extra credit. I was the only student to do it and my letter was the Letter of the Day! Since then I have been blogging, writing letters to The Gleaner of which several have been published.
Here I am today, after completing high school education at Bridgeport Comprehensive High School (the first to attend the school when it transitioned from secondary to comprehensive high), graduated with two masters’ from University of Pennsylvania, and now doing a doctorate at the Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and am a published author.
Happy Mother’s Day to my mother and to all Jamaican moms who sacrifice and put in the work to raise their children. Thank you for investing and believing in me! Thank you for your patience to see it through, and thank God that you are still here to witness your investment and the success of your children amidst the struggling health which God has been addressing with you so that you are still here and have improved. May you still be there for my doctoral graduation and the third book.
RENALDO MCKENZIE