Diana: My Mother. My Shadow. My Mirror.

“Grief is a house where the chairs have forgotten how to hold us,
the mirrors how to reflect us,
the walls how to contain us.” –Jandy Nelson

My Interpretation: I do not just grieve the woman she was. I grieve the woman she could have been – if the world had let her be softer. I grieve the childhood I did not get. The comfort I begged for. The apology that never came. She left. & all the questions stayed.

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🩸 The Storm That Raised Me

She was not soft.
She was not warm.
But she was mine.

& when the world started taking her piece by piece,
I held on like it was my job to keep her from disappearing.

She did not raise me gently.
She raised me like a storm that raises trees - 
bent, cracked,
rooted in survival.

& I grew crooked from the pressure.
Still reaching for light.

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🧷 Scraps of Love

I wanted her love like it was oxygen.
Like if I could just behave. Be useful. Be quiet.
Be good enough - 
She would finally give it freely.

Instead, I learned how to earn affection in scraps.
How to apologize for needs that made her sigh.
How to shrink, contort, perform.

There were emotional landmines in every room.
Silent treatments that stretched for weeks.
Anger that could pierce through a wall with just a glance.

& still - 
I loved her.
Even when I did not know how to say it out loud.

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🧪 The Caregiver

When she got sick,
I did not crumble – by choice or chance. 

I was the caregiver.
The one with the meds chart.
The one monitoring her eating, comfort, decline, noticing the patterns/shifts. 
The one tucking in a woman who never really tucked me in.

She needed me at the end.
& I showed up.

Because even when she could not hold me right -
I still wanted her to know what being held felt like.

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🤍 Guilt, Grief, and Ghosts

There is guilt in how much I miss her.
Because some days - I do not.

Some days, I remember the slammed doors.
The heavy sighs.
The way she looked through me instead of at me.

But then there are days…
Days I would give anything to hear her laugh again.
To call her for a recipe.
To scream at her. Cry to her. Something.

I was 23 when she died.
& I still feel 23 every time I try to mother myself.

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🖤 She Was Not Perfect. But She Was Mine.

She left so much undone.
So much unsaid.
But I loved her.
Even when I did not know how to say it without choking on it.

She was not what I needed.
But I still wanted to be enough for her.

& even now -
some part of me still does.

Xoxo ♡