Rembering Mother

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She stands in the kitchen slicing watermelon. Mottled green skin gives way to the blade’s sharp edge exposing a tender succulence within, red flesh dotted with seeds as black as her brow.

She is angry with me. I don’t know why. Have I done something to upset her? Or perhaps there is something I haven’t done and that is what upsets her. My confusion ties hard knots in my belly. I never know where I stand with my mother.

Some of the melon’s sweet juices splash onto the table. She swears under her breath. I don’t know what to do when she is like this. I’m only a child.

I look for any clue to divine how I may change her mood. Everything I try fails. I show her my drawings. She isn’t interested. I read her my stories. She cautions me to be quiet. I give her all the colours of my rainbow, she yells at me.

“For heaven’s sake, not now. Go away and make yourself useful. You’re such a selfish child. I don’t have time for you.”

Her words still echo many years from that day. I waited in vain for her to open the door she hid behind, my ear to the keyhole, struggling to know the world beyond where she lived. I wanted to know her and be close to her. I wanted her love.

But I was only a child. I didn’t know how to differentiate between my mother and the woman she was. When I grew up, I realised they were two different people. The woman exerts no power over me. She is a stranger who doesn’t even acknowledge my existence. I can deal with her.

However, my mother still wields a god-like power even though long dead. I was the bane of her life, the burden that remained when the man she loved died. She dangled my destiny in her hands, like a cat playing with a bird, unaware of the damage she was doing.

One day I will fly free. I will no longer feel this overwhelming need to connect, to earn her love. One day she will be just another person on my path. My teacher, my trial, I will catch her at the finish line and pass her by with only love in my heart.