Be Good to Women Day

In celebration of Be Good to Women Day I celebrate you, the readers of this blog, the founders and contributors. Thank you for honoring yourselves, the women in your lives and women all over.

I will say that as a daughter, sister, aunt, mother, woman and human being I am grateful for a day such as this, however the celebration is bittersweet. Do your own research on the statistics of abuse against women. Research the internet, look into the faces of women in your churches (yes, your church too), schools, neighborhoods and even more sadly, your homes. Be Good to Women Day, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day should sound as weird as National Blood Flowing through Veins Day and Blinking Day. But I won’t preach. No, I am a poet, an artist, a mother who has seen too many sad, broken, abused, lonely women and has been every one. But I am one of the special ones because I know that abuse does not define me. I am not first name Victim last name Zainabu. In fact, my name doesn’t matter at all. All you need to know about me is that I am God’s daughter. This…knowing was the key to my healing. Because of whose I am I am whole. I am complete.

So how should you celebrate Be Good to Women Day? Well, you create that. I will suggest this, be the change you want to see in your mother’s life for all women, all of the time. And when you forget, remember. And be that again.

God holds the hearts of women
In a special place I feel
The benevolent eye that watches the sparrow
Watches us
I know

Still the conversations of victim, defeat and not enough show up
Harmoniously, in whispers, often, today
We understand, as if understanding were cure
Through long work shifts, sore feet and bills due
We are hopeful inside closets where we cry
On the lawn chairs where we laugh about the nothing
About everything

We know we are enough
Still we are big girls longing jump rope and tetherball at recess

We are strong
We are our mothers our grandmothers
We are words and rainbows
Rivers and results

I stand in front of my mirror
Full breasts
Hips that carried my son
A belly that rested his head

Still the not enough shows up

And sometimes I listen
But then sometimes
I don’t

Be Good to Women Day. Be good to all women. I am every woman and so are you. If I am not well then neither are you. If I have eaten and you are hungry then none of us are well. Be Good to Women every Day.

begoodtowomen.com