Page 31 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Maria Chidzanja Nkhoma 19

The Original Artistic Role Model, Singer and Mother
Maria Chidzanja Nkhoma: Musician, Mother, Poet,
Broadcaster, Activist

Ne’ema Bowen

How can I write anything that is befitting of someone often described as
the “last original Diva Veteran Singer; the last Malawian Diva;
Journalist/Producer/Poet/Singer-Songwriter/Activist and Radio Presenter?”
I am a daughter….in this moment still feeling like a child of 18 with a
much older exterior. How am I to manage/cope with the loss of a mother? I tried
not to make this sad…but my reflections are the state of my emotions as I am
writing this, some 8 months after my Mother’s very sudden death.
Whilst the journey to Malawi in May 2021 felt like the release and start
of our mourning, I genuinely felt that the being in Malawi, being present and real
and experiencing loss …letting the pain really pierce my core … was cathartic. I
felt so much lighter, much more positive, re-energised even. But only a few weeks
after returning to the UK, I feel that dark cloud has descended again and the light
and brightness and joy (yes, joy because I was with family in Malawi, with people
who loved her, knew her) has gone. I now just bury this welling feeling, this lump
and brick in my heart because to actually explore it again feels too painful. I miss
our daily messages on WhatsApp…even if it was my Mother telling me off for
not popping on a quick good morning or goodnight. Although sometimes if my
messages were too brief… I still got a little telling off. I thought a little something
was better than nothing.
My feeling is that to be able to write in colour - to be able to reflect those
vibrant colours that my mother always wore, you have to be present in light and
laughter…sadly…I am not in that place today…but maybe tomorrow.
I need to be able to write something that is becoming of a woman who
achieved, transcended, overcome, battled, celebrated, a woman with a true
legacy…how can I when I do not even know if I knew all of her…but perhaps it’s
a reflection that in life we never truly know a person, and should we? My mother
gave to so many …she was very intelligent, knowledgeable, self-taught but she
had also lived…I mean really lived. However, in the last chapter of her life…she
was not the person everyone knew when she was in her 50s, 40s or 30s or even
20s. Why should she be? She was SHE at 68…who she was meant to be…who
she wanted to be…but perhaps …when I insisted “you still have lots of life in
you”…she felt she had lived her life on earth to the best she humanly could and
now she was on her journey to the best place she felt she wanted to be. Not her
last chapter…no because SHE is not dead…she has left a real legacy on earth, and
she is alive and now really free.
Perhaps tomorrow I can write……better.