Mom.

I’ve written and deleted this post 3 times now because I can never find the right words to express my feelings towards my mother. My mother takes on various roles. Her attitudes change like the weather day in and day out. You never know what you’re going to get when she comes home from work. She has such incredible emotional strength that I obviously did not inherit. She has the innate ability to build you up and tear you down in the same breath and her bark is just as strong if not stronger than her bite.

My mother is a blessing and a curse. She means so well but sometimes her concern creates walls that collapse on top of me. It’s so overbearing at times, that it makes me want to scream and curse. But I never do. I come here to write about it. My biggest supporter and my greatest critic wrapped up into a 5’7″ package of West Indian fury. She is frightening, she is soft, she is a great contradiction.

How do you sum of 22 years of a relationship into one post on a commercial holiday to celebrate the person who forged you into existence through iron hips and sheer force of will. The woman is one to reckoned with to put it lightly. The damage she can cause? Irreparable. The chances of that happening? Slim to none.

The words to describe her will never seem to fit together in the right sequence. My mother has brought me to tears out of anger, fear and empathy. The one thing that remains true is that after I’ve cried and after she’s cried, we’ll crack a joke about how ugly our crying faces are and how if we don’t stop they’ll be stuck like that forever. She can drive me absolutely mad but I will always have a place to run to, a place of solitude and a place of strength and forgiveness in her arms.

Happy Mother’s Day.