My mother and I were passengers in a car on the highway, passing Madalla market one uninteresting afternoon. We came upon this very massive billboard and my mother excitedly pointed to it and told me to read it, I was still in primary school at the time, but I questioned her motive, because at that point I could perfectly read. 

It read “Awaken the giant”, alongside an equally massive image of a leopard on the billboard, advertising for some energy drink of sorts. I looked lazily at it and read it silently in my mind, and told her that I had read it. “Noooo, you have to say it out loud!”, she said. I read it out loud, unenthusiastically.

She wanted it to mean something, she wanted me to feel the boldness of the message on the billboard that read “Awaken the giant”, but unfortunately, I wasn’t excited by it at all, probably because I pass that same billboard to school every day, therefore I have seen and read it way too many times for it to attract even a modicum of my attention. But she wasn’t aware of that because my school was so far away from home she had probably only visited it once. 

“You see, there is a giant in everyone, every Muslim is a giant” she tried to explain, “And to awaken the giant is to become more”, said my mother. After a while she felt exasperated by my nonchalant replies and lack of interest, and promptly gave up. 

Every now and then I would remember this little memory and think about it. And I came to the realisation that she was trying to “motivate” me. This past September, was exactly 10 years after she passed away, and I am beginning to realise the full effect of the influence of her teachings in my everyday grown-up life, her hopes for me, that after all this time, I am still learning and applying the little snippets of knowledge she’d shared with me, may Allah have mercy on her and forgive her, amin. 

My mother would try to cajole us into watching ‘more productive’ shows such as documentaries instead of cartoons. At unspecified times of the day, she would throw random facts about great people from history at us and tell us to be like them. 

My mother was motivational long before the internet made it so popular, before everyone started over-sharing inspirational quotes on Instagram and Whatsapp, she was the real deal. 

During her time there were no blog posts telling you how to be productive, or articles telling you about the best habit-tracking apps. 

Admittedly, our whole success thing was not very defined, unlike today, we didn’t have access to the internet’s endless well of information, hence, the way she motivated us was a riff-raff collection of knowledge and advice, and shows on TV, and stories from her secondary school days. 

I remember someday when I was watching Huda TV with her, and they put on a show called “Key to Success”, it was the first episode airing. She became so excited and encouraged us to watch the show. It became clear to me it was the type of content she envisioned teaching us, a very straightforward approach to the motivational and success narrative. Something that just outright talks about ‘How you can become successful’ without relying on the heavy use of parables and stories. 

Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the second episode. 

I listened to most of what my mother had to say, probably because I did not want to get beat up with a slipper. She imparted a lot of good things to me and ten years after she has passed, I realised I have been subconsciously applying things I learned from my mother in my daily life, to attain good outcomes in whatever I do. She would look at me and say “Never belittle others”, or “Be more confident when you speak”, and goes on to explain why she thinks I should or shouldn’t do these things. 

I mean I am far from perfect, I am in fact, a dizzying disappointment compared to the “me” that should have listened to her. I am sorry mama, I am trying. I truly am. 

I remember when we would watch Oprah together, an icon of success herself, my mother would tell us how Oprah Winfrey started from the very bottom and made her way to the top, with hard work and the right motivation. She finds Oprah’s story as a great example of contemporary success, and she rightly was. 

There is simply so much I have learned from my mother that I cannot simply put a lid on it, from the teachings from the life of the prophet (PBUH) as the ultimate motivation to his companions peace be upon them, to history’s great figures such as Malcom X, to all the random motivational wisdom I would get from her when I least expect them. 

In our lives, my mother was a titan, she outshone a lot of exemplary men and women of history for us. She lived a life based on the best practices of Islamic principles and egged us on to do the same. She wanted me to be a great man, to awaken the giant in me.