I remember being 5 years old and looking up at her. I want to be her, I thought. She was
beautiful in my eyes. I wanted to someday have her body and her beauty. I
believed that she was an angel on earth, for her beauty to me was so amazing.
Her love and kindness gave me safety. She tucked me in, drew me pictures,
stayed with me in illness, played games with me. She was more than an angel.
I don’t remember the age, but I remember there being no more
games. She hates me, I thought. Did I
do something wrong? Had I broken this angel? Was I bad? She wishes I was a boy, I thought. And I retreated into my own
space. I couldn’t understand that adults go through things that children don’t
see, couldn’t comprehend. I didn’t know, and still don’t know, what struggles
she was enduring that pulled her away.
And then I remember being 14 looking straight at her. She will never understand me, I thought.
In my eyes she had changed. She had become this distant being who existed only
to torment me. I couldn’t understand that her beauty still existed, but it was
hidden from my teenage eyes because in my teenage mind I had twisted her intent
and mixed up her meaning. I was lost within my own reality and she within hers.
The truth was I could not understand her.
At 19 I watched her suffer the greatest loss she could
endure and survive it. How will she cope
without him? I thought. Her soul mate gone I broke inside for her. But her
strength and perseverance was nothing short of astounding. I saw something so
different in her and, even though she still didn’t understand me, I began to
understand her just a little.
Again at 20, I looked at this amazing being in my life. Thank God for her, I thought. She had
survived my teenage insanity and still cared enough for me to help me in my
greatest need, motherhood. My child, with colic, screamed every 2 hours. I was
dead on my feet, easily upset, and exhausted. This angel floated in several
times a night to care for my child so that her child could rest.
At 38 I forgave her and I forgave myself. I want to have a relationship with her,
I thought. The distance between us had not changed. That was partly my fault
and I knew it. She was still beautiful. For so long I thought she hated me, but
really I hated myself. At 38 I finally let it all go. We started over.
Now, at 44, I look at pictures of her. For I have moved far
away. She is beautiful, I think. Even
now,I want to be
her, I think. Her strength over the years has endured and impressed me. Her
patience, though I never realized how much she had, is incredible.
at her advanced age, her beauty radiates from her like rays of the sun.
She looks happy in pictures.
I will never be her,
I think. Though my husband says I resemble her and have her beauty. He swears
he married me because he knew I would be as beautiful as my mother. We are
different and that’s okay. I have my own strength, developed through pain and
loss and necessity. I have my own patience, developed through time and
circumstance. She helped me become this person I am and I’m grateful for that
because I like who I’ve become.
