Before She Becomes the Shade Itself

Taking inventory of the parts of me that constitute my personality, my strength and fears, and my accomplishments and (yes) my failures, I eventually find myself looking towards the women who have featured in different parts of my life and helped to form who I have developed into, and who I have become.

Many women who I have met or whose lives I have followed over the years pass fleetingly through my thoughts like misty mental catalogue: Ms. Ellison, my third grade teacher who helped develop my love of reading; ”B.” who I met while working at Barnes and Noble in the late 90s—she was always interested in my thoughts, my burgeoning creative process, my writing; Becca, who combines creativity with kindness and courage and wears it like a delicate, warm, twinkling shawl about her. In this delightful carousel of beloved faces and names, I can pluck out poets and artists and even a few Disney Princesses like vibrant blooms who beckoned my muse, who made me blossom in turn.

Coursing deeper into my emotional makeup, I am able to dissect and pull away layers of time and experiences and at the core is the woman at the starting point, my mother, my mama.

Who affects you with more impact than the person where conception was made possible? Whether you have no relationship with your mother, a difficult one, or a very loving, but still complicated one, you cannot deny her presence or lack of one had the ability to imprint a powerful impression on you. I sincerely hope with all my heart for your sake that influence was a positive and beautiful force.

Where I am in my relationship with my own mama is a fragile dance that has sorrow filled movement, and some bursts of energy and hope. Whoosh—breath out, there I said it, typed it out in front of me on this white space. Now the next, more difficult sentence:

My mama has been sick since last year, and the disease is only progressing.

My mama has always been an inspiration for me, even during those times of my life (the rebellious early years, for certain,) that I didn’t quite appreciate the scope of how she has formed me. She taught me, in her unassuming fashion, to be giving, to be curious, to not give up. She let me know that it was okay to be scared sometimes; there is a sincere absence of courage without first understanding about a sensible degree of caution and fear.

She is not perfect. She was never perfect, no one is, and in my low points I saw that as defect, as weakness. My bouts of anger would hold that against her and hold her to an impossible standard of motherhood, of womanhood, to whom no one can measure and not come up short.

Motherhood, my motherhood, was yet another of her unexpected gifts to me. It endowed me with a better empathy and respect for the challenges she was up against. I finally understood. She wasn’t perfect, she was instead fallible and very human, and that was beautiful to realize. I was, too. It is never a reason for shame. It is a reason for evolving.

My mama is sick. I am lost, a child once more who is confused and adrift without her guidance.

She forgets and she remembers me in turn these days, and what terrifies me most is that she won’t ever recall what she means to me, how precious she is, how she gave me life, made me live, remains at the nexus of my life.

I have to be strength itself, or I do not honor her at all. She is the life blood, the umbilicus of inspiration still. Did she know that? Does she keep that truth close to her? Does it whisper to her along with the other voices that now crowd around?

She seems to fade around the edges with every moment, but I want that knowledge—my love, my gratitude, to remain.