Mama

I was coming out of the airport when she spotted from afar. She waved at me excitedly and the joy in voice as she called out my name felt like a thousand radiating suns.

“My baby!”

I ran straight into her arms. She landed loving kisses on my face, ignoring the dissenting huffs and puffs from other people nearby. Her perfume brought back the familiar scent of safety I always felt. This was home, my only place on earth where I would forever feel safe. And this was my mother, my sun to the superwoman in me.

She chattered happily all the way home.

“Remember your favorite cookies from Mrs. Kimi when you were younger? I asked her to bake you the same yesterday. And I bought 3 boxes of them!”

It was no use telling her that I had cut off cookies from my diet to maintain my weight.

“Stop the silliness! You are home. Surely few cookies aren’t going to kill you.”

She had arranged my bedroom, called my brother and his family, brought my favorite food and had made all schedules and plans for my trip.

As she chattered away, Iadmired how beautiful Mama always managed to look. Although it had been a while since the last I saw her, it seemed to me that she still got everything – her beautiful smile, that glitter in her eyes, laughter in her voice and even her grey hair just added more depth and warmth to her seasoned face.

“So, how long are you going to stay this time?”

“Mama, again?!”

 I looked at her in mock annoyance.

“I already told you 3 times since we left the airport. And I had sent you an email and text messages. I will stay for 5 days and leave next Monday.”

“Oh yes, yes. Why can’t you stay longer this time? We have so much we can do together….” Her voice trailed off in veiled disappointment.

I explained again that I didn’t have many leave days from work but she was not listening anymore. She looked outside the window and pointed at the house. Her enthusiasm reminding me of how happy I used to feel when she came to pick me up from the boarding school for my summer vacation.

“See! Your brother and his family are waiting outside! Oh, they must have reached while I came to pick you! Oh, look at your nieces! They are so happy!!”

She jumped out of the car and rushed to hug her grandchildren before ordering my brother to carry my luggage. “And tonight, we will feast and enjoy my only daughter’s homecoming like there is no tomorrow!!”

When we sat the next morning for breakfast, I noticed there wasn’t the usual jam on the table. Mama checked her cupboard and fridge.

“I left it there yesterday before I came to pick you up. Someone must have touched it last night!”

Her mood became worse by the minute she unsuccessfully looked for the jam all over the kitchen. I tried to calm her down and said that I was happy with the butter.

“Nonsense, I got them especially for you yesterday! You must have them!”

We ended up calling all our guests from the previous day. Of course everyone proclaimed not to have seen the jam. Later, I discussed the same with my brother.
“She’s becoming forgetful. She will keep her stuffs somewhere and forget where she keeps them. And then, she will go around accusing everyone of stealing it until she finds them again.”

By middle of the week, the church’s preacher came to request her to lead the Sunday’s women worship program. Besides, it was the thing she had been doing there for ages. Mama was excited. She loved the church and had always been a regular.

“We should check the church on Saturday morning so I can check if things are in order.” She suggested while we had our dinner later that night. “And I would need to prepare. Oh, I am so excited!”

I noticed that she barely touched her food.

“Mama, did you have the soup I left for you today?” I interrupted as she talked excitedly about the program.

“Soup?”

“Yes, the one I made for you in the morning before I left the house? I kept in the fridge for you, remember?”

After her initial puzzled look, she smiled and waved her hand. “Of course, of course! Now, I was talking about what dress you would wear.”

When dinner was over and I opened the fridge, I saw the soup untouched and packed as I had left them in the morning.

 “Mama! You told me that you had the soup!! You lied!” She looked hurt, almost as if I had wrongly accused her.

She began to protest before realizing that I was serious.

“Oh that?! I wasn’t hungry. Now, come and see how this beautiful necklace you got me. It looks so beautiful on me. Oh, how envious will my friends be!”

I knew Mama enough that she didn’t want to continue the conversation.

I laid in bed that night wondering how Mama had been acting odd lately. She forgot her cup of tea that I left next to her, came to take my cup and left it in the bathroom – untouched; she had left the car keys in the flowerpot and later came home empty-handed when she went out to buy the bread.

“Maybe” I thought to myself, “Maybe Mama has….” I found myself refusing to finish my thought and went to sleep.

On Saturday, however, we couldn’t ignore it any longer. We went out after breakfast to go to this church she had been going for years. We ended up on the other side of town when she kept forgetting the lanes. In the end, we had to ask around people as she hadn’t updated her GPS for years.

“Mama, have something happened to you?”

I looked at her as she sat down angrily beside me on the pavement. She tried to reply me but her speech made no sense. She was fumbling with her speech, with no connections whatsoever. I could only get that she was disappointed in herself and questioning how she couldn’t remember the way.

“I am way too stressed. I shouldn’t have taken the church program!”

“We found the jam inside your clothes wardrobe, Mama. That was before the church program. That wasn’t totally a normal thing to do.”

“I told you for the 10^th times, it must be your naughty niece!! Stop bringing it up! You make me stressed.” She began to raise her voice, her hands clenching. She turned towards me, her eyes were red, ready to burst into tears any moment.

And that was when I saw it – my mother knew it and was she afraid, terribly afraid. No words need spoken when they were written in her eyes. She had known it for quite a while and had been trying to hide it from everyone. And now, she just couldn’t hide it anymore.

She had always been an independent woman, raising 3 children on her own while having a successful career in a male dominated service industry, she was the woman who retired with a badge of honor. She had been respected, loved and envied by others. She was educated, a pioneer in her own right and to her children, she had always been the rock. Yet, it struck her and she knew she was slowly losing her essence, her independence, her life. She was a proud woman who had always done things on her own. But, she knew it came to her too.  

I didn’t know how to react or what to say.

“Have you seen a doctor, Mama?”

After a long pause, she turned away from me “Yes, I went a year ago. He said I was fine.”

Sometimes you know that exact moment when the world you knew change right before your eyes, when that protective womb of security busted to left you out cold, naked and helpless.  

“Well, we need to go again. Because either he was wrong or it had progressed since you met him last.”

Then she turned towards me and cried on my shoulder.  

I had never seen Mama cried before, let alone held her as she howled, hiccupping as she cried.

She had been my fort, my ever strongest shelter in the storm. She had been my Mama – the one that could not break.

My mind was reeling with shock from the realization that my Mama was slowly forgetting me, that her memories were slowly fading away. And one day, she won’t even know who I was, or who she was. She would forget until there was just an empty shell with no knowledge of her surroundings.

What do you tell your protector when she instead cries with fear? What words of comfort do you give when you’ve always been on the receiving end? What do you do when words are all dried up in your throat?

 “I am afraid.” She looked at me. “I am afraid of what’s happening to me.”

We held each other in silent embrace. My mind drew blank and I felt like I was watching a movie in foreign language.

I kissed her cheek and I gently wiped her tears away.

“I am afraid too Mama.”

I moved her body from me and held both her arms with my hands. I smiled as our eyes met and remembered the words she used to tell me whenever I was afraid.

“But I know this one person in our lives who isn’t afraid. Shall we kneel down together and pray?”