Opinion / Columnist
Suddenly, the government says my dead mother is no longer my mother!
2 hrs ago |
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When compassion is replaced by bureaucracy, a nation begins to decay from within.
It is difficult to describe the pain of losing a mother.
To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
It feels as though the world suddenly stops spinning.
The silence that follows her last breath is deafening, the emptiness unbearable.
But imagine, for a moment, that in the midst of this grief, the very government that should help you lay her to rest suddenly tells you that your mother is not your mother.
That is precisely what has happened to me.
When my beloved mother, Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri), passed away on the 4th of October 2025, I believed the most difficult part of my journey would be saying my final goodbye.
She was laid to rest two days later, on the 6th, in Redcliff.
Her funeral was a moment of dignity and honor — a fitting farewell to a woman who had given her life to the service of others.
Our local ward councillor attended.
The mayor of Redcliff paid his respects.
These were not gestures made to a stranger — they were tributes to a woman deeply respected and to me, her son, who had stood by her side all these years.
For decades, I have written about my mother.
She was a nurse at Ziscosteel's Torwood Hospital from 1964 until 2010, a period spanning nearly half a century.
In my writing, I chronicled her life, her devotion to her patients, and the company's eventual collapse that left her and thousands of others unpaid their pensions.
I shared the painful story of how she continued to serve even as her own livelihood crumbled under state neglect — losing her entire savings, insurance policies, and lifetime investments amid the devastating hyperinflation of the early 2000s.
I wrote about her resilience — about how, in 2015, she fought a long, draining battle with cancer, emerging weakened but never defeated.
I even told the story of my own birth in 1973, when I entered this world unresponsive — not breathing, not crying, not moving — and how it was my mother's persistence and faith that pulled me back from the edge of death.
Now, after her passing, I am being told that this same woman is not legally recognized as my mother.
When I went to the Gweru Births and Deaths Registry to obtain her death certificate — an essential document needed for legal, estate, and burial matters — I was turned away.
The officials informed me, coldly and without empathy, that I could not register her death because my mother's name on my birth certificate reads "Anna Mbiriri," while her own birth certificate bear the name "Anastasia Mbiriri."
To them, that difference — "Anna" versus "Anastasia" — was enough to sever the bond between mother and son.
I was stunned.
I tried to reason with them, explaining that this was clearly a clerical error from decades ago.
I pleaded with the officials to understand that "Anna" and "Anastasia" referred to one and the same person — my late mother.
Yet they would not listen.
They dismissed my explanations outright and refused to entertain my request any further.
I left the registry office dejected and bewildered, unable to comprehend how such an obvious and harmless mistake could carry so much weight.
Surely, how can someone who is not my mother name me as the sole beneficiary of her entire estate, clearly describing me as her only son?
How can droves of people gather for her funeral — including public officials — to pay their respects and offer condolences to me, if I were not her son?
How can I, for over a decade, have written publicly and passionately about a woman I called my mother if she was not?
All this disbelief and injustice — simply because her name is Anastasia, and some incompetent official once recorded it as Anna on my birth certificate.
To the registry officials, a clerical error made by some careless bureaucrat in 1978, when my birth certificate was produced, has more authority than decades of lived reality, testimony, and documented truth.
And so, today, in the eyes of my government, my mother — the woman who gave me life, who nurtured and protected me, who raised me through hardship and sacrifice — is suddenly not my mother.
I have become, on paper, the child of a phantom.
This is not just a personal tragedy.
It is a reflection of a broken system that elevates bureaucracy above humanity, formality above truth.
How can an entire government bureaucracy deny a son the right to register his mother's death because of a single word written by an inattentive clerk nearly fifty years ago?
How can they ignore everything else — her identity, her life's work, her community, her will, and even her death — all because of a minor spelling variation?
What makes this situation even more absurd is that such discrepancies were common in earlier decades.
Many of our parents' names were recorded incorrectly due to the colonial clerks' limited understanding of African names, language differences, or simple negligence.
In some cases, entire surnames were misspelled or Anglicized.
Yet the government of today, fully aware of this historical reality, still refuses to exercise reason, compassion, or discretion.
The irony is painful.
This is a government that routinely talks about honoring our parents and preserving our cultural heritage.
Yet it dishonors a devoted woman who gave her entire adult life serving a state-owned enterprise — Ziscosteel — which in turn betrayed her and her colleagues by failing to pay them for years of service.
And now, in her death, that same government has decided that she is not even my mother.
What makes this sting even more is that my mother's life was not invisible.
She was known, respected, and loved in the community.
She brought countless babies into this world as a nurse.
She treated the sick and comforted the dying.
When she finally passed, Redcliff came to a standstill.
People came to pay tribute, not because of politics, but because of the kind of woman she was.
Her dignity, her compassion, her quiet strength — all of it lives on in the memories of those she touched.
And yet, to a faceless official behind a desk, she is just a mismatch between two pieces of paper.
If the law is meant to serve justice, then where is the justice in this?
What moral logic allows a family to be denied closure over a minor clerical error?
What sense does it make to deny a death certificate — not because of fraud, but because of an obvious, innocent mistake made decades ago?
The registry's refusal defies both logic and decency.
It is a heartless display of bureaucratic rigidity that mocks everything the civil service is supposed to represent.
A government that cannot show empathy for its citizens in moments of grief has lost touch with its own humanity.
The duty of public officers should not be to hide behind technicalities, but to help citizens resolve them.
The role of the registrar is not merely to enforce paperwork but to recognize truth and facilitate dignity in life and death.
In my case, the truth is clear and indisputable: I am the son of Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri).
The community knows it.
The church knows it.
The leaders who came to honor her life know it.
The will confirms it.
And even the government, if it looked at its own employment records from Ziscosteel, would know it too.
Yet, in this moment of loss, I am being forced to fight to prove my own mother's identity — as though the love, the bond, and the shared years between us can be erased by a clerk's careless pen.
If this is how our bureaucracy operates, then how many other Zimbabweans have been stripped of their identities, their rights, and their dignity by similar errors?
How many sons and daughters have been told their parents are not theirs because of one misspelled name?
It should not take court orders or affidavits to prove something that is so self-evident.
Compassion and reason should be part of governance.
In a country where citizens already suffer enough from a broken down health delivery system and corruption, it is unthinkable that even in death, we must battle the state to recognize truth.
As I continue to seek justice for my mother, I do so not only for her, but for every Zimbabwean who has ever been told by their own government that their truth is invalid.
No clerical error will ever rewrite the story of Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri), my mother — the nurse, the caregiver, the warrior, the woman who gave me life.
The state may deny her name on paper, but it can never deny who she truly was, nor the son she raised.
© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/
It is difficult to describe the pain of losing a mother.
To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
It feels as though the world suddenly stops spinning.
The silence that follows her last breath is deafening, the emptiness unbearable.
But imagine, for a moment, that in the midst of this grief, the very government that should help you lay her to rest suddenly tells you that your mother is not your mother.
That is precisely what has happened to me.
When my beloved mother, Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri), passed away on the 4th of October 2025, I believed the most difficult part of my journey would be saying my final goodbye.
She was laid to rest two days later, on the 6th, in Redcliff.
Her funeral was a moment of dignity and honor — a fitting farewell to a woman who had given her life to the service of others.
Our local ward councillor attended.
The mayor of Redcliff paid his respects.
These were not gestures made to a stranger — they were tributes to a woman deeply respected and to me, her son, who had stood by her side all these years.
For decades, I have written about my mother.
She was a nurse at Ziscosteel's Torwood Hospital from 1964 until 2010, a period spanning nearly half a century.
In my writing, I chronicled her life, her devotion to her patients, and the company's eventual collapse that left her and thousands of others unpaid their pensions.
I shared the painful story of how she continued to serve even as her own livelihood crumbled under state neglect — losing her entire savings, insurance policies, and lifetime investments amid the devastating hyperinflation of the early 2000s.
I wrote about her resilience — about how, in 2015, she fought a long, draining battle with cancer, emerging weakened but never defeated.
I even told the story of my own birth in 1973, when I entered this world unresponsive — not breathing, not crying, not moving — and how it was my mother's persistence and faith that pulled me back from the edge of death.
Now, after her passing, I am being told that this same woman is not legally recognized as my mother.
When I went to the Gweru Births and Deaths Registry to obtain her death certificate — an essential document needed for legal, estate, and burial matters — I was turned away.
The officials informed me, coldly and without empathy, that I could not register her death because my mother's name on my birth certificate reads "Anna Mbiriri," while her own birth certificate bear the name "Anastasia Mbiriri."
To them, that difference — "Anna" versus "Anastasia" — was enough to sever the bond between mother and son.
I was stunned.
I tried to reason with them, explaining that this was clearly a clerical error from decades ago.
I pleaded with the officials to understand that "Anna" and "Anastasia" referred to one and the same person — my late mother.
Yet they would not listen.
They dismissed my explanations outright and refused to entertain my request any further.
I left the registry office dejected and bewildered, unable to comprehend how such an obvious and harmless mistake could carry so much weight.
Surely, how can someone who is not my mother name me as the sole beneficiary of her entire estate, clearly describing me as her only son?
How can droves of people gather for her funeral — including public officials — to pay their respects and offer condolences to me, if I were not her son?
How can I, for over a decade, have written publicly and passionately about a woman I called my mother if she was not?
All this disbelief and injustice — simply because her name is Anastasia, and some incompetent official once recorded it as Anna on my birth certificate.
To the registry officials, a clerical error made by some careless bureaucrat in 1978, when my birth certificate was produced, has more authority than decades of lived reality, testimony, and documented truth.
And so, today, in the eyes of my government, my mother — the woman who gave me life, who nurtured and protected me, who raised me through hardship and sacrifice — is suddenly not my mother.
I have become, on paper, the child of a phantom.
This is not just a personal tragedy.
It is a reflection of a broken system that elevates bureaucracy above humanity, formality above truth.
How can an entire government bureaucracy deny a son the right to register his mother's death because of a single word written by an inattentive clerk nearly fifty years ago?
How can they ignore everything else — her identity, her life's work, her community, her will, and even her death — all because of a minor spelling variation?
Many of our parents' names were recorded incorrectly due to the colonial clerks' limited understanding of African names, language differences, or simple negligence.
In some cases, entire surnames were misspelled or Anglicized.
Yet the government of today, fully aware of this historical reality, still refuses to exercise reason, compassion, or discretion.
The irony is painful.
This is a government that routinely talks about honoring our parents and preserving our cultural heritage.
Yet it dishonors a devoted woman who gave her entire adult life serving a state-owned enterprise — Ziscosteel — which in turn betrayed her and her colleagues by failing to pay them for years of service.
And now, in her death, that same government has decided that she is not even my mother.
What makes this sting even more is that my mother's life was not invisible.
She was known, respected, and loved in the community.
She brought countless babies into this world as a nurse.
She treated the sick and comforted the dying.
When she finally passed, Redcliff came to a standstill.
People came to pay tribute, not because of politics, but because of the kind of woman she was.
Her dignity, her compassion, her quiet strength — all of it lives on in the memories of those she touched.
And yet, to a faceless official behind a desk, she is just a mismatch between two pieces of paper.
If the law is meant to serve justice, then where is the justice in this?
What moral logic allows a family to be denied closure over a minor clerical error?
What sense does it make to deny a death certificate — not because of fraud, but because of an obvious, innocent mistake made decades ago?
The registry's refusal defies both logic and decency.
It is a heartless display of bureaucratic rigidity that mocks everything the civil service is supposed to represent.
A government that cannot show empathy for its citizens in moments of grief has lost touch with its own humanity.
The duty of public officers should not be to hide behind technicalities, but to help citizens resolve them.
The role of the registrar is not merely to enforce paperwork but to recognize truth and facilitate dignity in life and death.
In my case, the truth is clear and indisputable: I am the son of Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri).
The community knows it.
The church knows it.
The leaders who came to honor her life know it.
The will confirms it.
And even the government, if it looked at its own employment records from Ziscosteel, would know it too.
Yet, in this moment of loss, I am being forced to fight to prove my own mother's identity — as though the love, the bond, and the shared years between us can be erased by a clerk's careless pen.
If this is how our bureaucracy operates, then how many other Zimbabweans have been stripped of their identities, their rights, and their dignity by similar errors?
How many sons and daughters have been told their parents are not theirs because of one misspelled name?
It should not take court orders or affidavits to prove something that is so self-evident.
Compassion and reason should be part of governance.
In a country where citizens already suffer enough from a broken down health delivery system and corruption, it is unthinkable that even in death, we must battle the state to recognize truth.
As I continue to seek justice for my mother, I do so not only for her, but for every Zimbabwean who has ever been told by their own government that their truth is invalid.
No clerical error will ever rewrite the story of Anastasia Mbofana (nèe Mbiriri), my mother — the nurse, the caregiver, the warrior, the woman who gave me life.
The state may deny her name on paper, but it can never deny who she truly was, nor the son she raised.
© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/
Source - Tendai Ruben Mbofana
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