She was so pretty. her eyes are blue like corn flowers. that kind. a bright pretty happy blue. she's tiny. like, 5' 4" or something. and built like a little bird. her hair is blonde. and her smile is beautiful. and she's a genius. she plays these instruments, and reads and retains hundreds of pages per hour. quantum physics is a hobby of hers. she worked designing weapons for the navy. without being taught how, or any formal education. and when i was sick she knew exactly how to hold my hair back while i threw up and hold me in her lap. but she was mean.
one day when i was 12 i tried to reason with her. i sat down in our rented town house that some distant family person was paying for.she couldn't pay for anything. she couldn't work. because she couldn't bring coors to the office with her. someone had mercy on the pretty blonde victim mother of kids she wouldn't support, and put us up in that house. so we were in the kitchen with her at the table. she was only wearing a t-shirt and panties. and she had her jack and water she would drink with no ice. and her coors. and i said, look. i love you. and i need you. will you please stop? can i mean more than that to you? can we fill you up instead of that. please.
and she looked me in the eye, and she said, no. i love this. i do not love you. i never loved you. you ruined my life. you made me this way. and then she sipped more.
a couple of years before that when i was 10, she told me i'd grow up to be a prostitute. and be pregnant by the time i was 13. i didn't know what a prostitute was. i didn't know how to be pregnant. and i was a fat, swarthy, ugly child. but she decided that's what i was and what i would be.
i wanted her to hold me today. but she's gone now. she can no longer walk. she's not pretty anymore. she looks like something from a scary movie. not kidding. like death with a heart beat. open, draining sores on her black legs that she cannot use to walk with anymore. her teeth are black because she has not brushed them in years. she pees on herself and lives in her urine. she stopped bathing too. she scares me.
and i remember being young and holding on to the resolution that i would never be her. and then becoming that. i am 3 years younger than she was when she had me. and i look back, and then forward, and then at me now. and i see her in my chin and my face that is the same, darker, not as fine boned version of her. it makes me quit when i see her staring back.
i tried to love her too. i am so desperate for her not to have this same thing that made her legs dead and her hair scary and made her decide not to bathe or eat anymore. but i have it because she gave it to me. so i went to her and held her in my arms. and whispered to her that she is BEAUTIFUL, because she is. even in that filth. she is so pretty. and i told her that Jesus sits next to her and grieves at her pain. and that He can't hold her so i will. and i told her that she's His baby girl still, and i would keep her safe. and i'm not mad that she hates me. but that i would forever love her and hold her hand and clean her wounds and she was the mama but now i will be and she can rest and learn what it means to be the loved and protected and wanted child of The Living God.
she said no. and told me she hated me. and she was sobbing. and told me to get out.
i finally did.
i love my mama. i don't want to be her. but i guess i have to be to be able to be the only person left in the world that loves her, and always will.
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