Mother

I was never allowed to cry. There was no reason under the sun sufficient to justify me crying.

If I fell and scraped my knee, I was not to cry.

If my mother had just backhanded me as her instant and frequent response to some infraction on my part, I still must not cry.

Mother’s mantras, “You’re just being emotional,” and if I didn’t stop crying instantly, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” have stayed with me still.

After we moved in with my grandparents when I was a year and a half, my grandmother saw my mother slap me once and put her foot down.

“So long as you live under my roof you will never slap one of those children again,” she declared.

What a relief! That moment and that speech remain in my memory as shiny jewels of joy. And Mother applied herself to change her habit and after only two slips really did stop slapping me!

(Did I mention that I have a very long memory that goes back to times I was in the womb? Well, and to lifetimes before this one also, if I’m to be strictly honest.)

I loved my mother. She, as I began to ask the interminable “why” questions of a three year old, always gave me the best answer she knew. And when she really didn’t know she freely admitted it and told me that when I was older, if I still wanted to know, I could study up on the subject.

I was so grateful to have all my questions answered, to know why the sky was blue and to finally get clarity on a very puzzling thing: why people were called “human beans.”