REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

The second time our mother told us that humans might not know where they came from, my sister laughed.

We were sitting on her bed on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the three of us squeezed under the same blanket even though we were far too old for it. My sister was lying across the foot of the bed, scrolling through her phone and I was sitting beside Mother, listening.

Mother had always been a storyteller. Not the kind who read from books. She preferred stories that had no endings, the kind that left you arguing about them long after she had finished speaking.

That afternoon, she looked at both of us and asked, “Where do you think human beings came from?” My sister didn’t even look up. “From mamas like you, ” I said. Mother smiled. “That’s one answer.” I thought about it again. “Adam and Eve?” “That’s another.” My sister finally put her phone down. “So which one is it?” Mother laughed softly. “That depends on who you ask.” “That isn’t an answer.” “No,” Mother said. “It isn’t.”

She pulled the blanket higher over her legs and looked toward the window. “For thousands of years, human beings have been asking the same questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Who made us?” My sister shrugged. “God.” “That is what some people believe.” “And what do you believe?” Mother didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked at me. “What do you believe?” I hadn’t expected the question. “I don’t know.” “Good.” My sister frowned. “Why is not knowing good?” “Because it leaves room for you to ask questions.” She smiled. “And humans are very good at asking questions.”

She began with the story most familiar to us. “In the Abrahamic traditions,” she said, “there is the story of Adam and Eve. In Genesis, Adam is created first, and Eve is later created from one of his ribs after God sees that it is not good for man to be alone.” My sister raised an eyebrow. “So women were made for men?” Mother shook her head. “That is one way people interpret the story. I don’t.” “What do you think?” “I don’t believe women were created simply to fulfill men’s need for companionship. I believe women are complete beings with their own purpose, consciousness, and inherent value.” My sister nodded slowly. “Okay. So that’s one story.” “One of many.”

Mother folded her hands over the blanket. “Now listen to what happens when you travel somewhere else.” She began telling us about Hindu traditions. “Hinduism doesn’t have one single creation story that everyone follows. It’s much more diverse than that. Some traditions speak of Brahman, the ultimate reality underlying existence itself. Other traditions speak of Brahma, a creator deity associated with bringing the universe into being.” “So which one do they believe?” “Some believe one thing. Others believe another. There are different schools, different texts, and different philosophical interpretations.” She paused. “And that is important. When people say, ‘Hinduism says this,’ they sometimes make something incredibly diverse sound like one simple belief.” My sister nodded. 

“What about Buddhism?” Mother smiled. “Buddhism is interesting because it generally doesn’t begin with the question, ‘Which God created everything?’ Many Buddhist traditions describe existence through cycles of birth, death, and rebirth rather than a single creation event. The emphasis is often less on identifying a creator and more on understanding suffering, impermanence, consciousness, and how one might become free from the cycle of suffering.” “So they don’t know who created everything?” “Some Buddhist philosophies don’t consider that the most important question.” She looked at me. “Sometimes the answer isn’t the point.” I thought about that.

Some spiritual and esoteric traditions also believe that human beings are, in a symbolic or literal sense, fallen angels or divine beings who descended from a higher spiritual realm and forgot their true nature. According to these beliefs, life on Earth is a journey of awakening and remembering where we came from. Maybe this is why some people interpret our endless desires, dissatisfaction, sinful nature, and longing for something beyond ourselves like the material world as signs that we are here to suffer because we once came against God in heaven which I definitely don’t agree with.

Mother continued. “Then there are the creation stories found in traditional Chinese mythology.” She smiled. “One of the best known is the story of Pangu. According to the myth, in the beginning there was a cosmic state of chaos, described as something like an egg. Pangu emerged and separated heaven and earth, and as he grew, the distance between them grew as well.” My sister had stopped looking at her phone. “And then what happened?” Mother smiled. “There are different versions. In some tellings, after Pangu dies, parts of his body become features of the natural world. His breath becomes wind, his voice becomes thunder, his eyes become the sun and moon, and other parts of him become mountains, rivers, and the earth.” “That sounds terrifying.” Mother laughed. “It is a creation story. They’re not all supposed to sound familiar.”

“And Nüwa?” “Nüwa is another important figure in Chinese mythology. In one well-known story, she creates human beings from yellow earth or clay. Some versions say she carefully moulded them herself, while others describe her creating large numbers of people more quickly.” My sister smiled. “So in that one, humans come from dirt.” “In a way.” She looked at me. “Which isn’t entirely unfamiliar, is it?” I smiled. “Adam was made from dust.” “Exactly.”

Mother’s eyes brightened. “And that’s what fascinates me.” She began counting on her fingers. “One tradition gives us a garden. Another gives us clay. Another gives us cosmic chaos. Another gives us cycles of existence. Another looks at the universe through philosophy rather than a creator.” She lowered her hand.

“And then science gives us another explanation altogether.” “Evolution,” my sister said. “Evolution.” Mother explained that Charles Darwin did not claim that humans came from the monkeys we see today. His theory of evolution by natural selection proposed that species change over generations and that living organisms share common ancestry. 

Modern humans and other living primates followed different evolutionary paths from earlier common ancestors. “And where did those ancestors come from?” my sister asked. “That’s where the questions keep going.” Mother smiled. “The earliest known fossils of Homo sapiens come from Africa. So, in the deepest evolutionary sense, humanity shares African origins.” She looked between us. “Before people start deciding who is more modern, more advanced, or more important, they should remember that.” I liked that part. But Mother wasn’t finished.

“Then there are Indigenous creation stories.” She looked thoughtful. “Kenya alone is home to many different ethnic communities, each with their own traditions, histories, and ways of understanding existence. Some traditions describe a supreme creator. Others involve ancestors, sacred places, animals, or elements of nature. Creation isn’t always separated from the land and the community itself.”

My sister frowned. “So everyone has their own story.” “Many people do.” “But if the stories are different, they can’t all describe the same thing.” Mother smiled. “Why not?” “Because they’re different.” “Different explanations can still be attempts to answer the same question.” She leaned back against the headboard. “Think about it. A person living thousands of years ago looks at the sky and asks, ‘Where did all of this come from?’ Another person somewhere completely different asks the same thing. They don’t have the same language, the same culture, or the same experiences. 

“So you think all religions are the same?” I asked. “No.” Her answer came quickly. “They are not the same. Their beliefs, rituals, gods, philosophies, and explanations can be profoundly different.” “Then what are you saying?” I asked. “They may arrive at very different stories but are all saying the same thing”

I looked at her. “So what do you think?” Mother smiled. “I think we’re all trying to remember something we don’t completely understand.” My sister groaned. “That’s very mysterious.” Mother laughed. “Maybe it is.” She leaned closer. “I believe we’re spiritual beings. I believe we are souls.” She looked toward the rain, “I believe consciousness may be much older and stranger than we understand.”

“What does that mean?”

Mother picked up the empty bottle beside her. and walked towards the window facing the rain. “Imagine an endless ocean.” She held the bottle up. “The ocean is the Source. Now imagine someone scoops some of that ocean water into this bottle, She tilted it slightly, “The water inside is suddenly separate. It has boundaries. It has a container. It has free will to choose what it wants to experience. You can point to it and say, ‘That water is separate from the ocean.’” She looked at us. “But has it stopped being ocean water?” Neither of us answered. “No.” Mother smiled. “And if you pour it back into the ocean, can you find the exact place where that water ends and the rest begins?” My sister shook her head. “That’s what I mean.” She set the bottle down.

“Maybe our bodies are the bottles. They give us the experience of being separate. You have your body. I have mine. Your sister has hers. We have different memories, personalities, lives, and perspectives.” She touched my forehead gently. “But perhaps underneath all of that, the consciousness is connected.” Then she touched my sister’s forehead. “Maybe we are different expressions of the same awareness.”

My sister smiled. “So we’re all the ocean?” Mother laughed. “Something like that.” She looked at the bottle again. “The Source of creation was never made by us. Everything we see, everything we experience, everything we call life may have come from something far older than our understanding.” She paused. “Maybe we are pieces of the same consciousness experiencing itself through different bodies including all living things like animals and plants.”

I stared at the rain. The idea sounded beautiful. But Mother wasn’t smiling anymore. “There’s another possibility.” I sat up. “What possibility?” Mother looked directly at us. “What if we aren’t the beginning?” My sister laughed. “The beginning of what?” “Us.” Mother picked up her cup of tea. “What if something created us?” My sister shrugged. “God?” “Maybe.” She took a sip. “Or something else.” “Like aliens?” Mother smiled. “Why not?” I laughed. “Now you’re just making things up.” “Am I?” She set her cup down.

“Imagine humans create something intelligent. Something that can think for itself. Something that eventually becomes intelligent enough to ask the same questions we ask. Who created me? Why do I exist? Where did I come from?” My sister said, “Like AI?” “Exactly.”

Mother smiled. “Now imagine that AI eventually creates something intelligent of its own.” She held up one finger. “Humans create AI.” Another. “AI creates another civilization.” Another. “That civilization creates something else.” She lowered her hand. “And so on.” My sister stared at her. “So it never ends?” “Maybe it doesn’t.”

I laughed. “But then who created the first one?” Mother looked at me. “Exactly.” She was quiet for a moment. “Maybe that is the question humans have been trying to answer since the beginning. We create religions, rituals, philosophies, and stories because we don’t like staring into a mystery without an explanation.” My sister looked at her. “So everyone is just trying to make sense of it?” “Perhaps.” “Then what makes your belief different?” Mother smiled. “I never said mine was the final answer.” That made my sister quiet.

Mother continued. “I simply think we should be careful when we become too certain about something none of us can prove completely.” The rain tapped harder against the window. My sister looked at me, then back at Mother. “If everything is an illusion, then why can’t we just spread the right gospel?” Mother’s expression changed. For a few seconds, she said nothing. Then she looked at us. “Because no one will believe you.”

I laughed. “Why?” “Because everyone wants to believe what fits what they grew up with, what they were taught, or what makes sense within the life they have built as adults.” She paused. “People don’t always want an answer that changes everything they thought they knew.” My sister raised an eyebrow. “Then what do they want?” Mother looked toward the window. “Something they can understand.” The room fell quiet again. I watched the rain slide down the glass.

“So, Mama,” I asked, “what do you think happens when we die?” Mother was silent for a while. “Mmmh. Good question, child.” She smiled. “Maybe there is reincarnation. Maybe that is why certain places feel strangely familiar to some people, or why certain moments can feel as though we have experienced them before.” “Like déjà vu?” my sister asked. “Perhaps.” Mother shrugged. “Maybe we return to the Source. Like the water in the bottle returning to the ocean.” She looked at the empty bottle. “Maybe the soul leaves the body and returns to where it came from, becoming part of the whole again.” She paused. “Or maybe there are different universes, different realities, different places that souls experience.” I frowned. “Souls?” “Yes.” Mother looked at both of us. “Remember what I told you. I believe we are souls. I believe we have always existed in some form we cannot fully understand. You and your sister have always existed and we are always connected.”

She looked toward the rain. “Earth may not be our only home. Maybe it is simply a temporary home our bodies borrow for a little while.” “How long?” “Some people live for almost a hundred years. Some much less.” Her voice softened. “But the body ending doesn’t necessarily mean the soul ends.” I looked at her. “And what happens to the soul?” Mother smiled faintly. “Maybe it goes home.” The words were simple. But something about the way she said them made the room feel colder. My sister didn’t seem to notice. She yawned. “Mama, you’re making this way too deep.” Mother laughed. “Maybe I am.”

She stood and pulled the blanket from around our legs. “But that’s a story for another time. Y’all have to go to your rooms to sleep. Tomorrow is school.” My sister groaned. “Already?” Mother smiled.

“Tomorrow is Monday. It’s school time, my loves.” We walked toward the door. I was almost in the hallway when Mother called our names. I turned. She was still standing beside the bed. She looked at us for a long moment, then she said something so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her. My sister laughed from the hallway. “Mama, you’re being creepy again.” Mother smiled. I laughed too. Then I walked away, almost halfway to our rooms, when we heard the doorbell. My sister ran downstairs to check, and it was just my aunt carrying a small bag of clothes and an umbrella.

We hugged her and happily said Mama would be happy to see her. She was upstairs in her room, and we were also going to sleep. She looked at my sister, then back at me. Her face changed. My aunt slowly reached for our hand and leaned for a hug. “Sweetheart…” “What?” She looked at us with tears in her eyes. “Your mother died eight days ago.”