The word I cannot call her.
The pain of seeing my mother in my face
Words I wrote years ago, when the wound was wide open:
I hate that my smile is your smile
that when I look in the mirror
I see you
more each day
that my face - your face - is a reminder of everything I longed for
and never had
I am embarrassed
to see your cheeks
in the mirror
the ones everyone compliments me for
they remind me of your hardness
when I needed softness
I hate that I hear you in the way I laugh
It reminds me
of everything I want to forget
I hate when people tell me to find strength in your story
and pride in my roots
when all I want is to erase this face
too similar to yours
the face that reminds me of
the word I cannot call you
the title I cannot give you
all that comes out is Ma -
‘Mamma’ doesn’t find its way out my throat
missing syllables
for the missing parts of you
you are still here
but I have mourned you all my life.
For most of my life I couldn’t call my mother mother, or ‘Mamma’. I would, and still do, for the most part just call her “Ma”. It’s easier, it’s a little bit detached, it doesn’t hurt.
In one of the best books ever written, Women who run with the wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes:
You are born to one mother, but if you are lucky, you will have more than one. And among them all you will find most of what you need.
This has been very true in my life. I am so incredibly lucky to have found mothers in many women.
The word ‘Mother’ doesn’t bring my biological mother to mind. Instead I think of my friend Lu, who has been like a mother to me. Who has held me when I was sad, who has hidden birthday balloons in a hotel room in Marrakech to surprise me just after my divorce. I think of Alline, who brought me home cooked meals when I was sick in bed with Covid. I think of Fran, who drops in announced with her sunny smile, who feeds my body and my soul equally. I think of Julia, who has made me a part of her family, whose children are like my children, whose bed I have slept in many times. I think of Giselle, who has held my hand in tears when I didn't know how to keep existing. I think of Ami, who is my home, who has given me love and safety in more ways that I can count.
I think of many others, part of my past, who, at some point, have mothered me, who have created safe spaces for me to land.
I think of me: the mother I have been to myself.
Even though I cannot call her “Mamma”, today, I don’t feel the same way I did when I wrote these words. Sometimes the feelings flare up. But I don’t feel pain when I look in the mirror and see her eyes. Her cheeks. Her smile.
Now I know this about her:
She is a little girl, mourning her mother too. She didn’t know how to mother herself.
I look at her with love now. With tenderness and compassion. We repeat what we don’t heal. We remain in a loop of pain when wounds are just covered, not tended to.
And so I made a choice. For me, and all the people I am mothering now and will mother in the future: I will heal what you couldn’t.
A mother isn’t just made when a child is born. In fact, being a mother has little to do with the biological act of giving birth at all. A mother is made through the act of loving another. Family is not simply sharing the same DNA. It’s not blood that makes a family. It’s choice.
Maybe one day 'Mamma’ will be easier to say - but if it won’t, I know that I have been a mother to my own heart and that it was the most terrific, meaningful and quiet making of a mother.
This resonates with me deeply. Learning to see my mom less for her faults and the pain she brought me in my childhood, and more leaning into curiosity about her childhood/life before me. The more I learn the more tender I become towards her. She did the best she could with the tools she had. I hope my children can look at me one day and say the same thing, and I will fight everyday to work towards healing and growth - for their sakes, but also for my own. 🤍
Reading this, and the comments from other women, is so validating. This is one of those things that can make one feel alone, and here you’ve shown us we are not. Thank you.