mother

I have never understood people’s obsession with DNA, their minds momentarily forgetting the depths that human connection will find without shared genes, and while I’m not an expert regarding biology or evolution or psychology, what I do know is that I hear my mother in the way I laugh and how loudly I sneeze. 

I also remember her fiery gaze every time I cry during an argument with someone I love, her blazing spirit superimposed over my tear-streaked cheeks whenever I happen to look in the mirror. I feel her presence with me when I sit down for coffee, turn my phone over, and listen to the friend seated across from me, and when I offer advice to other people, I hear her words in my ear. I hear her telling me I missed a spot when I clean my apartment and I embody her warmth when I cook food for the people I care about. I feel her in my undying loyalty and my determination and my focus.

Every time I find myself defending something, anything, I know my passion comes from my mother, even if I also know she would disagree with my words. I tell people the truth because that’s how she raised me, but I also know what to omit because she showed me the art of protection as well. Every instinct I have comes from her. She taught me fairness in the same breaths with which she disciplined, and while my back still knows to find a wall when my shoulders start to shake, I still call her for comfort and she still provides it, a delicate balance I made her all-too familiar with. I know my worth because my mother knows hers.

I’m reminded of my mother when I smile with my teeth, something she always told me to do growing up and something I sometimes find myself instructing her to do now. Every time I smell the ocean, my mind drifts to her, walking along the beach, giving me her love of the sand and the waves and the shells. When I feel nature tugging at my soul, pulling me out to the waves or into the woods, I know that yearning comes from her. Looking up at the stars, I see magic, and I know that’s because of her faith in the universe and its energy — a spirituality that I never found in a church or a chapel or the Bible, but always found in listening to her. 

I feel my mother in the way I love.

She made me in all the ways that matter to me now.

We are not the same, yet we are, because she raised me.

I don’t have any answers, but in showing me how to build a family, my mother taught me that family is a feeling that can’t be put into a box. This is why I will always make a case for the significance of nurture, with my mother and myself as evidence, because when I think of myself, I also think of her.