Mother

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.