To women everywhere, I salute you

Sometimes one experiences the most extraordinary things when you least expect it.

I have been spending way too much time watching the war in the Ukraine. The chaos and the destruction is heart-breaking. Watching women flee their country with only the basic necessities that they can carry, some with toddlers on the hip, knowing that they will probably never return to what was once home, is gut-wrenching. I have realised that we cannot begin to imagine the reality of the horrors of war.

But on Sunday, I was unexpectedly and very suddenly, thrown into a war zone. Or so it felt. My little Olive was christened and for the first time in my life, I entered the mothers’ room at our church. Chaos and pandemonium is putting it mildly.

In the less than 30 minutes I spent on the front line, I was confronted with a mother having to play nurse after her little boy managed to inflict a head wound on himself with a bright red and yellow plastic lorry.

Suffering mildly from hemophobia (the fear of blood), I felt an urge to flee, but retreat is not in my vocabulary. I am, after all, also a veteran of conscription.

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While the injured soldier was attended to, other mothers were forced into peace talks as two little frilly dressed girls battled over the same tea set. Then, without warning, all of us fell victim to a chemical explosion of the diaper kind, without a gas mask in sight. And no, Covid masks don’t help. If anything, they make it worse.

All this happened with the continuous and unabating ear-piercing ringing of what I imagine an air-raid siren sounds like. Who knew that two babies can have such shrill voices?

Fortunately, I was relieved of duty before any further attacks, and I enjoyed some R&R (rest and recuperation) in my car with the soothing music of Guns N’ Roses.

I once again realised that, whether it’s in time of peace or war, it’s the women who inevitably serve in the front lines and carry the heaviest burden.

So, to women everywhere, whether in a church in Krugersdorp or in Kyiv, I salute you.