Shattered

To be honest, my mom often irritated me—
The way her eyeliner never touched her lash line,
floating above it like a missed opportunity.

The way she always saw the other person’s point of view
even when she knew they were dead wrong.

Her criticism stung—sharp and quick.
Her empathy was often misplaced.

I saw her as a version of my future self—
A likely outcome.
An outcome I didn’t want.

Even so, I admired her goodness—
The listening. The problem-solving. The connections.
The life-long friendships. The humor. The good deeds.
The way people spoke of her—loved her dearly.

The clean home. The vibrancy. The fairness.
The cheeriness. The smile. The twinkle.
The holiday traditions, the gathering of family.

But not the Sisyphean struggle to change that man.
Not the bickering, the judgment, the manipulative charm.
Not the ego, the quick self-sacrifice, the critical bite.

Not the internalized misogyny, the warped narratives,
the comfort of cookies in the middle of the night.
Not the refusal to sweat, the lack of adventure,
the willingness to be gaslit, the inability to protect me.

Not the preference of one child over the other.

But when her life-ending diagnosis came—
it wasn’t just her body failing.

It was my stomach twisting, my breath faltering,

My sadness buried deep.
My need to comfort. My unspoken terror. My managed pain.
As if I were in that bed, in that darkened room.

Her mouth slack, the wet washcloth on her forehead—
but I felt it on my own skin.

She was waiting to die.
I was waiting, too.

And in the end,
there was no line between us—
her suffering was mine,
her surrender, my own.

Both of us
apologizing
that it was taking so long.