Growing up, our mother constantly tried to mold us to her expectations. Expectations she would set for herself. Expectations she never reached, hoping her own children would someday meet those escaped dreams of hers.
Our mother gripped us hard, pulling and pushing us to face the harsh world as a momma bird would push her babies out of their nest, letting them either fly or fall.
Naive, our fears and demons creeped up in us. The laughter of others, the words stung when they called us foolish. Foolish for wanting to seek beyond the horizon. When we called our mother for refuge, she shamed us. She wagged her finger at us, and pushed us further away from the place we called home.
In our most important years of our youth, our mother was living overseas. She left us on opposite sides of the world. And a hole was created. A part of our childhood seemed to be missing. We had no choice but to learn and fall our way through the world on our own.
Mom. Mother…these words foreign to our tongue. A cocktail of the salty taste of tears on our faces and blood on our fists, finished with a lingering bitterness.
Birthdays, graduations, and coming of age events…we stand in our dresses, our gowns, in our sweat soaked uniforms watching with longing eyes, our friends and peers’ mothers greet them with hugs and kisses. Where is our mother, we wonder? Across the world. Midnight, sleeping, dreaming of a better tomorrow.
Over the years we become our own mothers. We scurry across the hall with arms full of dirty clothes falling through our hands as we dump them into the wash. As night falls, we take out our freshly bought produce and whip up a home cooked meal guaranteed to warm the tired soul. Rejected from countless job opportunities, we chant to ourselves that the best is yet to come. And when we see our loved ones hurt, we stand up and fight back. Our own maternal creature, a natural to us. We live our days as a solo artist of life.
But, in a way we are grateful for our mother for teaching us to be strong, tough, and to thrive wherever we are and wherever the world takes us. From the cold tundras or the hot blistering deserts, we owe it to our mother for our sassy and bold — tempered attitude and for the wisdom we have gained with each experience.
In the year 2020, the world went crashing and people all over the world were faced with questions beyond their means and decisions beyond their comfort and safety. My mother’s company closed down and she was forced to come home. She flew back to the nest that was long forgotten.
Though we live under one roof, nothing is perfect. We still feel the same gaping hole we encountered as a child. Now, the hollowness has morphed into a beautiful incomprehensive abstract piece that we will carry within us forever; sculptured and resculpted with each lesson learned and with each heartbreak. But time heals all. Only time can smooth away the bumps in our hearts. After all, life goes on.
What’s most important is that we are all together again as one family.
