mother

You wore a weary, sagged look—the years had indeed aged you.

Around your mouth were two predominant wrinkle marks, and while smiling at you, I could almost see a shy smile curve into those laugh lines. You never acted your age—always jumping, frolicking, giggling. Now I saw the woman of wisdom you had become. I wanted to hold you, kiss you on the cheek, and stroke your hair. I wanted to be the one this time that you leaned on in sleep.

You have been through many things I have not: marriage, love, baby, in-laws, and knowing the freedom of being twenty.

Today I wear your t-shirt, the one you wore when you were pregnant with me.

But I am not that. Not yet. Not for a while.

The smoothness of its soft texture remind me of your arms, embracing me always. Its tomboyish style fondly and bitterly tell me how alike you and I are, even though sometimes I wish it wasn’t so. But right now, I’m content with having some of your qualities. I’d rather refer to them as qualities you’ve passed down to me that I put a twist on when they entered me.

You think I don’t know you know what I know. You probably never did the things I do, thought the things I think, and understood the things I understand. But now you know, After you had me, though, and I’m aware of it.

Tighter than a double bond in chemistry class, we love. The relationship is mutual; you let me poke my head out the car window while you drive, and you find satisfaction in that. Or so I think. What is it you want? Surely you had dreams and goals. But you gave them up, didn’t pack them in your suitcase when you became immigrant to red, white, blue, husband, new family, and a baby. You left the parties and brought along only a couple strands of that creative streak. I absorbed it all and more and your mother’s creativity as well; what have you done with it? Half-completed products of fuzzied goals that were so long ago. My larger-than-life school projects.

I write. I know what I want. Was your sacrifice necessary? Did yours have to crumble for mine to advance? I don’t know. I hope not.

Being your only, your number one heiress, I receive your legacy. A powerful one, no less. You have been blessed so greatly by the Everlasting Love, also known as God to some. That face of yours blends into His when you sit down to pray, your eyes closed, thick lashes layered on top of one another, mouth uttering silent words of wisdom and devotion, body swaying back and forth, rocked by another Spirit. I watch, at the doorway, in awe, every time. Every evening. At sunset. Then I want to be a part of that. And you willingly hand it to me with ideas and philosophies written in sacred texts. I think you are a sacred text.

Jaya Todai