The Mirror

Dear Mom,

This is supposed to be a confession, but it is also to be written in the form of a letter, so there are certain rules that I need to follow. Usually, I begin all of my letters to you discussing my state of mind, and then I fill in the heart of it with what I have done with my life since my last letter (or, more often, phone call). Those messages can get repetitive and dull and I have no interest in repeating myself.

So, what should my confession be?

I have a few ideas…

I look at my life now and wonder if you are truly proud of the man I have become and the things I have done. I am a graduate from two major universities with bachelor and master’s degrees. I have lived in different parts of the world, speaking various languages and meeting and living within different cultures. I now teach at a college and live in the most vibrant city in the country. I have never been in trouble with the law; I have no kids out of wedlock, or alimony to pay out; I do not take drugs, have an addiction to alcohol, or obsess over sports and video games. My work has been published in print and online and I continue to work and create pieces for multiple online pages. I keep myself busy and have a great reputation at work.

So, why do I still feel like I have failed you?

As I approach the heart of this piece, I have to talk about your life and what little I know about it. You have told me stories about your childhood and youth in the Caribbean: how you would walk to school through very mountainous and hilly terrain; how you survived a cholera epidemic so deadly that trucks would not even stop in your village for fear of infection; how your own father was the headmaster of your school (I can only imagine what it was like to face him both in his office and at home if you misbehaved); how you had to clean your desk by bringing it down to the sea and washing it at the end of term; how mangoes would fall out of the trees and become your emergency breakfast; how the mud of a local “boiling lake” was good for your skin and slowed down wrinkles and made arthritics feel better; how everyone you knew lived in the same set of villages; how you came from a real community.

I never knew it at the time, but I learned just how lucky I was to come from such a background. Poverty, racism and other forms of hostility were terrible to face, but they did not define who we were. I always felt safe no matter what the outside world threw at us. My childhood was full of benefits that the next generation will never know, just like your childhood was full of moments I can only imagine and envy.

As I said, I have to talk about your life. Just over fifty years ago, you moved to this country to start a new life. But you did not have a high school diploma, you did not know much about the country you chose to settle and raise a family in, and you had not even seen snow or felt that kind of cold before (I still love your story about your first night here and experiencing your first power outage in the middle of a severe blizzard). And you told me that you had wanted to leave. And yet, you stayed.

I was born a few years later, but my brother was already with you, as was your husband. I know that you were surprised when I told you about his behavior. He not only treated me badly, but also took out his disappointment with life on my brother. I wondered if this was because my brother was adopted, but I know now that he would have been just as unpleasant to us if we were all of the same blood. And I never even thought to ask you more about your relationship with him. All I knew was how he used to complain about my failings, specifically after soccer matches where I was often just cold and scared. And then, after his death at the end of a long stay in a hospital, you told me – many years later – that I was the best thing to come out of your marriage. I was overwhelmed by this, as I was overwhelmed by the circumstances of his death (two days before Christmas, which was the day he was to be released from the intensive care unit after recovering from a heart attack). As I said, this society provided so many shocks to the system and you had to adjust to all of them. You earned that high school diploma, and then you earned that nursing degree, all the while raising me, moving to a new house and a new life with a new husband. You also mentioned some of those other occupations you had while covering all of the above. As a maid, you worked for a family whose husband would receive an honorary degree at the same graduation ceremony where your youngest son would receive my first degree. That was a very touching moment for both of us. But the job you held that intrigues me the most was the one where you worked as a computer operator. The image I have of you passing punch cards into a huge room-sized computer is still vivid in my thoughts. I still wish I had a photo of you in this role.

You had your work, family and life within the community that managed to stay together in difficult times. You were a role model for us as we lost a father and faced other obstacles and challenges. And I always turned to you when I had moments in life when I did not know what to do.

So, my final confession: you were my mirror. You are my mirror even today. I still wonder if I will ever live up to the example that you created for all of us. My life is private, with no kids and a job with a school where I still work by contract, and I wonder where I’m heading.

But I will keep looking…

*

Thank you for reading!

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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