If I had to choose, I would’ve chosen for her to live.
My mother stood only five-foot-two-inches. She held onto weight around her midriff that displeased her but no one faulted her because she bore four children. She had a radiant smile with imperfect white teeth. Her hair was in between natural and permed due to impatience and indecisiveness.
Our matriarch, although she would never pull that word from her lips. She spoke to strength as if it were her fifth child. So if I could’ve chosen for her to escape the swallows of cancer, I would’ve.
Her diagnosis was inconvenient. In the middle of a summer of anticipated fun, we were given the sentencing. I thought—
She’s too young for this battle. She looks healthy, what are they saying? She’s my mother.
She’s going to die
And I was right. But we carried along for another few weeks remembering the words and ignoring the sight. Until we were forced to breathe it in. We were forced to accept that this was real. When those cheeks deflated and her waist was smaller than mine. When the bones moved slower and shivered and crackled during the storm.
In the thick of a hurricane we transported her to warmth and family. They were shocked by the change in her look so quickly, so unexpectedly, so unwanted.
The youngest of us, just fifteen when death called for our mother. I watched them bleed internally while racing for the strength that she left for us before they took her body for good. And I… I took what I could from it. I shined it up and wore it as if I knew what it could do. I wore the cloak of a woman feeling as small as I’d ever felt.
Being the oldest daughter meant something then. It meant that I had to remember the things that she taught in the little time that she had. Even though I didn’t want to. Even though I wanted to be the fifteen-year-old who got to mourn her mother.
It took its toll on me. Her clothes were heavy and they smelled like her. And I never really liked the scent that she chose. She was so beautiful and so loving and so full, but the stench of unrequited love bubbled in my stomach where it sat proudly on her.
I was one day shy of twenty-one when I accepted her fate. What was I supposed to do with that?
So I did what any young adult woman would.
I found out that her perfume was a little sweet. I found pride in a few of her threads. My heart fluttered and kissed familiarity as it tackled me. As I fell deeply in the footsteps of my mother.
