| Day breaks. I am here, still. Breathing. Another day and I wonder, who thinks about me now, besides my children? Almost everyone I love is dead. But I am still here, arising out of bed. Despite my diminishing bones, I continue to move alongside the day. I was beautiful once, it seems now not very long ago. Loved by a man whom at first I did not care for. My father forced me to marry at sixteen and slapped my face when I had protested that I wanted to finish school. "School is for men to get an education, to find good work to provide for the family. A woman is to be a good wife and mother. Your place is in the home." My place even now, is still in the home. These four walls that most my life I loathed, a cage gripping my soul, slowly became the only memory left of the sole world I have ever known. Once a year, in Spring I wash these walls, this cage and soul. My husband was much kinder than my father. At first, I did not speak to him unless I had to for a month after I was brought to my new home. He did not force me to do anything, and would bring me flowers each day after work. Since my mother died when I was an infant, and my father had ten other children to feed; I was not used to a lot of attention growing up. I was not accustomed to daily affection. Overnight, it seemed… I mattered. I was chosen, because someone wanted me and despite my desire to be an independent woman… my husband's tenderness assuaged my stubborn heart. There are nights when I dream about him and awake to an empty bed in a place foreign, far from home. It hurts to admit that I live for the bread crumbs of attention my children can manage between their busy schedules. These same children who depended on me once to be nourished and protected, now have their own families. Life has a painful way of accustoming you to aloneness. Looking back, I wish I had done it differently. Whole heartedly, as now I shall never again have the chance. After all the years I spent looking after my family, my eldest, whom I breastfed because I had to. I was not ready to be a mother at eighteen. I saw this little child clinging to my skirt at the market, a stranger who was mine because I had given birth. And no matter where I went, the fate of this being's life rested in my hands. Three more fates followed shortly after, and each time, I swallowed this bitter truth with anguish. Sometimes my children believed I did not love or want them, but it was not them I did not want. It was the sorrow I felt of never having had the freedom to choose for myself the destiny of my own life, and now I was responsible for four lives, to which every single tear they shed for life's cruelties pierced me repeatedly in the heart. This was my cross to bear. The persistent guilt that intertwines itself with being a mother. Spring is here now in old age and I wonder as I watch the buds on the branch bloom if this is to be my last. I feel young in my heart, but I watch as my body abandons me. I have become transparent throughout these years. Life has softened me. The passing chapters in life that invite us to forgive. To grow... I remember the budding of a new feeling after the birth of my grandchildren. I could kiss them and hold them in a way I never permitted with my own children because their fate rested with their parents. It was not my responsibility to discipline, to teach, to guide or to punish. I would look after them lovingly, and this ended up bonding me closer to my own children. I see myself now in the mirror, forgotten. The lines on my face replace where once youth dominated. My teeth have fallen. The roots of my hair stubborn with white, and I wonder why I bother still with this dye? I only ever feel beautiful now in the eyes of my children. The way my grand-daughter makes me up, my hair and sits there, doting on me. When I think of this approaching death, losing these memories is what hurts the most. So I keep myself busy, cleaning and cooking because it has been all I have ever done. Without work, life lacks a sense of purpose. And I both yearn and fear this death that both seperates and joins me with my family. On the days when my body screams with pain, and no one bothers to call or see me… I look around these four walls and cry alone. Perhaps death will reunite me with my beloved husband again… and I could tell him now what I refrained from expressing to him when he was alive. Just how much I appreciated and loved him. How much I miss him, each and every day... How there never goes a night when I don't think about his face, and our partnership throughout these years. His support of me, and his acceptance despite my coldness and reservation. I wish I could show him how losing those you love opens you up in an almost desperate way. If I could have given one opportunity to express to him without embarrassment, all the love that overflows in me… I would not fear death the way I do when my daughter holds me tight with tears and whispers how much she loves me. How much she misses me, as alas, this world has pulled us territories apart. I kiss her goodbye after a short visit and wonder secretly to myself if I will see her again. These days, caught between life and death. Where family awaits you on both sides…. it is a very lonely place to be, and the only relief from it is the rest at night that offers in no way a permanency. |
1 Comment
Junyan
4/9/2015 05:28:46 pm
This is one of my favourite pieces.
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