Not sure what’s more embarrassing, that at fourteen I still lusted for stuffed animals or that mum’s target at the claw machine was way better than mine. Precise as threading a needle, she’d push the steel arm straight into the heart of the stuffed pit, wait, sipping Pepsi, hand on hip, sure as a cowboy. Once, her single turn brought back not one but two animals — a spotted panther and a long-tailed squirrel. Unlike their real-life avatars, the two never escaped my sight. But she did. 44 then gone. God plucks some of us away randomly, the priest said. Walking home that night, her wins tucked under my arm, I trotted ahead, curious and jealous, asked — how is your aim so good? She shrugged, caught up, tightening her grip around my wrist. As if I was the one prize she wanted. Thanks for reading! If you enjoy Raising Mothers, please consider making a one-time or recurring contribution to help us remain ad-free. If even a fraction of subscribers signed up to contribute $1 …

I. My grief is buried somewhere deep. Where it can settle, be nurtured, and sprout as  something less disruptive, more fresh, and closer to the living.   II. Granny worries that I didn’t grieve properly at Mama’s funeral. I want to tell her my grief  has been released back to where it came from, until I am ripe enough to bear it’s season. III. In a dream, Mama, with her slim, black fingers adorned with bright gold rings, braids my  hair down my back. She is focused. Meticulous. I wake up, and rub the thick locs forming  on my head.   IV. Out in Mama’s garden, I can smell her. Fresh hibiscus and vanilla. It lingers, even in the dresses I take from her closet, and in the scarves I wrap my head in each night. V. When I dig my hands into the soil, I feel a soft beating, like a heart. Entranced, my  breathing slows to a steady rhythm. Granny bends down, grabs my wrists real tight, and  says, We’ll get through this …

There was never enough for cab fare so we walked within the small radius of our lives, mum & I. What would decades on; be diagnosed as arthritis first conceived itself as a stretching pain in the back of my knees. I hated walking. Flapping my heels against my butt, I’d slow down, as mum dragged me on and often to sweeten my slog, en route temples or doctors, she’d buy me a large frosted cup of crushed orange ice, knowing already it was surefire laryngitis for my cords, knowing already she was over-budget yet instead of letting me into the gloom of deficit, she’d sugar our stride with mmms and aaahs as I fed her tiny tastes, cold syrup saffroning her tongue with which she’d lick her thumb, count money over and over, hunched at the edge of the bed, darkening the minus symbol at the tally point of her slow calculations. Those nights when she VapoRubbed my neck, massaged warm coconut oil behind my knees I’d mime, taxi, next time and she’d say …

Who hardened you like this? Thickets of “protection” fortified around your heart “Protect you from what?” I ask The emptiness in your eyes replied in place of the silence of your lips Resting and waning The tide pulls back viciously Draining the earth around it You give and you take your love away Stow-away for “safekeeping” Closed down so good even you couldn’t find yourself I’d like to believe there was once a spark where your fingertips grazed the curves of life’s edges A glisten in your eye when you spoke life into the ears of the universe Hope in your heart where now hollowness pervades Because to feel nothing is better than to ache I said “What did they take away?” But I meant “What did they leave you with?” A fragment of your own reckoning Without the whisper of desire to put yourself back together again And for what? Time to be filled with emptiness As vapid as the distractions that divide meaning from the meaningless Hope from the hopefulness Empty as the …