The only Magic in Living Happily with a Disability is Believing in oneself and Daring to Live: Mothered with Love and now Mothering with more Love

I am Josephine Mwende, I am 28 years old and the first born in a family of four, two boys and two girls. I was raised by a single mother. I was raised like any other kid though I was favoured and loved more by all my relatives. I was raised in an extended family which was of great support to my single mother. I knew I was abled differently but I could not understand my type of disability at my young age. That did not keep me from achieving my dreams in life, I worked as hard as any other person would do in all aspects of life.

I’m physical challenged, I have cerebral palsy. There could be moment of my life when I could pity myself because I used to see people do various activities which I couldn’t do like them. I thank my mother for believing in me and encouraging me to give the best in life. She used to encourage me to keep going and do what I could no matter how slow I could do it and in deed I finally managed and I am now proud of who I am.

Being a mother with disability, a single mum in this case, is not easy as one may think.  Yes, I mean not easy at all. I always desire to do everything for my cute prince like bathing him, cooking for him, dressing him but as much as I love him, I can’t do all these without being assisted. Besides all these challenges of not being in a position to be the main care giver to my son in everything like any other mother does for their children, I always feel blessed and favoured to have him despite the fact that his father does not cater for my son’s need in any way.

I want to be the best mum to my son not only to prove his father wrong for not being present in his son’s life, but also to make my son experience the love of a mother just like kids whose mothers don’t have any disability. I attribute all this to God for without Him, my life and that of my son would not be the way it is. I have to reach out and tell fellow women with disabilities that life is not as smooth as we may wish it to be in areas like; relationships, marriages, daily life chores and so forth. But one thing for sure is that strong will and determination can go a long way.