Those who sacrifice are real women too

And that is deservingly so, because many will have worked very hard to achieve their professional and other goals, some more so coming from poor families and benefiting from the support of their parents, and more especially, from the “schooling” such parents deemed essential.

I did not, however, see the women and mothers belonging to the latter category being celebrated in the news for their sacrifice and hard work to make ends meet in order to take care of their families and send their children to school.

Perhaps I may have missed it, but if I did I would have been effusive in my praise for any single reporter who was sensitive enough to recognise the tremendous role such women play, but probably such women are not “newsworthy” enough.

But my “old lady” was always news for me, for being a water carrier from the sugar estate barracks in Golconda, she “toted” that water tin on her head for over 50 years, suffering the indignity on one occasion — of which she told us in her later years and there may have been many more — when a high class/caste woman refused to allow her to touch the water hose which she had allowed her to fill from.

With my father, who was also a canefield worker, they saved every penny so that we could go to school and beyond even up to university, allowing me to claim the distinction of being the first boy from the sugar estate barracks to go to university, and also my sister who benefited from a Mona education at a time in the 70s when the Jamaican dollar was almost equivalent in value to the US dollar, if not higher.

She was a woman then — a lady — for whom there was no celebration, which perhaps she may not have wanted, for the performance of duty would have been a continuing celebration in itself.

And there are many others like her, like the one being physically abused on a daily basis, having to endure it, for what can she do, if not stay and take the beating, just to live, and for her children.

And what of the young woman who had dreams like any other, of living with the man who professed to love her, and with him raise a family, little knowing that all he wanted was one thing and when that was over and she was left alone with the little pickney, he would pay her the odd visit, bringing a box of chicken ’n’ chips, and if faraway in the Big Apple, send her a barrel with some pretty, pretty Nike Jordan. Still she would carry on until the end, whatever that may be.

They are real women, but if even they were on the papers, they would blush, for true duty never cares for the limelight. But the women clinking glasses and praying in the cathedral are equally deserving as women, and lest we forget, let us also remember those who sacrifice and suffer in stony silence.

Dr Errol Benjamin via email