As we grow older, we begin to understand the sacrifices made by that one person that loves you unconditionally. You know that some debts are definitely unpayable, even if she told you otherwise.
Imagine a hill and the top represents the feeling of your own success and the unconditional love and pride of her for you. The road for you is long. Full of failures, challenges, up and downs, detours, and dead ends. But you keep trying because you desire to be at the top of the hill where she waits for you with open arms. You know deep down that every success story that you bring to her will have to top the last one to make her proud of you. Even if for you, the top of the hill is never reachable, for her, you have been on the top of the hill with her since the first breath you took.
Back in February 1988, my mother didn’t know she was pregnant until my grandmother used her sixth sense and noticed a different glow on my mother’s face and skin.
“You are pregnant,” my grandmother told her one morning.
“What?” my mother said reluctantly and nervously. “That’s impossible.”
My grandmother got closer to her and asked, “How late are you?”
My then naïve mother replied, “about two weeks. What does that…?”
My grandmother interrupted her. “You are pregnant, you idiot.”
It would be witless of me to try to elucidate the feelings she felt while hearing that statement from my grandmother at sixteen years old. At that age, even if you feel you can take on the world, you are basically a child.
My mother gave the news to my biological father and the coward’s answer was, “The child is not mine. You will not tie me up just because you are pregnant.” My mother’s world probably shuttered like a mirror after being hit at full speed with a rock. But she remained strong, because that is the only way she knows how to live her life. Standing tall.
She walked away, holding tears, and not giving that man the pleasure to see her bend or brake.
From time to time, my mother has opened up to me and shares stories that are not for me to disclose. What I can tell you is that that woman has endured and overcame atrocities that any other human being would be utterly broken by. However, her emotional endurance is so solid and powerful that her smile, and the brightness in her eyes act as suns for those around her. She is one of the most angelic human beings you will ever meet.
She never had a doubt in her mind that I was to be born.
Getting rid of me never crossed her mind.
I am who I am today because of her. Without her, I wouldn’t be in this world.
That is why I thank her every day for letting me breathe the air.
I thank her for not letting me fall and teaching me how to walk.
I thank her for the advice, the scolding, the sleepless nights, to let me grow.
She knows me better than I know myself.
She accepts me at my best and my worst.
She accepts me when I transform myself into a show-off, loudmouth, egocentric, idolatrous, idealist, pretentious and even an atheist.
I thank her for inheriting me emotional strength.
But above all, I thank her for loving me unconditionally and always having me at the top of the hill in her arms while I struggle on my own to get there every day.
Happy Mother’s Day My Wonder Woman.
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