Under The Sun

The Sacrifices of a Mother

The sacrifices of a mother.

As kids, we spend our entire lives not really knowing who our mothers are. And despite how many hours and time and days you spend with her. There's always going to be a hidden part of her we’ll never know. Because she, like many others in the world. Is her own individual. 

Mama will always be mama. With a secret life, I’ll never know. A part of her life that she hangs on to, like a secret treasure. 

Now I realize, I’ve never asked her what her dream job was, or what her childhood in the Congo was like. Oh mama, oh mama, my sweet old mama. The rise to my morning sun, the candle that lights up any dark room for me to see. 

But this is what we do as kids. Sometimes we forget. We forget our parents are also humans of their own, with goals and dreams. Maybe this is what the earth intended it to be.

Maybe this is what it's like to be a parent. You automatically give up a portion of you. A portion your kids will never really know. 

Do you think it’s painful? Or does it only happen to immigrant moms who leave everything behind, to give their kids a better future in a foreign country. A foreign country that insults her, demands for her to speak "proper English". Something her kids, who did not grow up in her country, will spend the rest of their lives trying to do. Correcting her, even though they know what she means. When the accent on her tung carries another language. 

As kids  we spend our entire lives not knowing who our mothers are. But some of us are okay with this and some of us seek to know her. But maybe, talking about it is painful for her. To relive the war in her country, the trauma of her family. Maybe for her keeping it all in is okay. 

And here I am. Finding myself loving someone who looks like me, but has a hidden life. Despite all this, I couldn’t love her any less. Because that is my mama, my first love and friend. The reason I do what I do. My mama.