I still get jealous.
I confess.
After all this time, it pains me to admit this, but it’s true. Whenever I hear others express the close bond that they have with their mothers, I marvel at how grand that must be!
And it stings.
Mama used to say: “You can have ten fathers but only one mother.”
I heard that line growing up and believed it. After my parents divorced, I had three different step-dads. In my young state of mind, I didn’t want to share my mama — she wasn’t married to any of them. I wanted us to be by ourselves. But Mama was too busy for me. I’m sure she did the best she could, but nurturing wasn’t in her DNA. Left on my own a great deal, I was a neglected child.
Loneliness was my middle name.
At age nine, once we moved to Florida, my grandma was more like a mother to me. I knew then what a mother’s love felt like and it just wasn’t the same as Mama’s. Not long after my daddy remarried, during visitations, my stepmother loved and welcomed me with open arms. I felt special in her eyes. With Mama, sometimes I felt she didn’t even see me because she was so preoccupied. As I became older, bitterness festered and I wasn’t necessarily a role model teenager either. I just couldn’t wait to leave home and do better than Mama, in search of love. I fell flat on my face. But I learned some things.
I learned Mama was a prisoner in her own mind, but she did the best she knew to do. She felt I was always mature for my age, never realizing how much I needed her. I haven’t stopped loving Mama. I loved her then and I certainly love her now. But because I had no choice but to grow up too fast, our roles have always felt reversed. Most of the time, I felt like I was the mother.
The miles separate, the years have passed, and Mama and I both have since aged. I can look back and forgive my past; it has made me who I am today. I’ve had to learn to forgive Mama a hundred times over, whose harshness and demeanor become more passive and feeble with time. I must show her kindness and love. No, she’s not perfect, but neither am I.
Today, I am someone’s mother and grandmother, a.k.a. Mimi. I pray that my own loved ones will always feel my love, even when we don’t agree.
No matter what.
It takes work. Patience. Prayer.
And much forgiveness.
As for Mama and I: Our communication skills remain much to be desired. I’ll keep working on it.
Mother’s Day is around the corner. It has always been so complicated for me in choosing the right Mother’s Day card. Once again, I find myself putting the cards back on the shelf in search of the one that describes Mama perfectly.
I think I’ll continue to write one for her myself:
To my one and only Mama.
I loved you then.
I love you now.
No matter what.
Love always, still your little girl.
© M.A. Perez 2017, All Rights Reserved
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Reflections From the Heart 