Mother

Mother

For my mother

She is seated at the driver’s seat

her hands tightly wringing the leather of the wheel

“Oh my God” she whispers

this, her only sign of prayer.

Images of first coming to this country replay in her head

Red, white, and blue, the colors of freedom.

Two jobs, cold floors, Je ne parle pas bien Anglais

her children and

the life her husband couldn’t give them.

Too poor for surgery, desperate enough

to become a guinea pig for a chance at survival

because her children still have to eat.

“Oh my God” she whispers

her sobs come out

small, choked breaths

too strong to show pain

too busy working to

watch her children grow.

Tears race down to catch each other.

We were both there

her sitting on a platform, her

naked body hidden under a thin piece of sheet.

And me sitting in the visitor’s chair

because I was a mere visitor

when the doctor said

“Cancer”.

An observer of a pain too sacred to participle in.

My mother cannot think of a world where

she survives this because her mother didn’t

and neither did her mother’s mother.

Crying for herself, crying for me

my mother would not look at me

unaware that inside me an internal

battle of pain, anger, and loss

fought to be expressed.                                                                           

And I tell myself,

there is nothing I would not bear for this woman’s sake.