The mother I thought I knew

My parents visited last week.

My mother was tired.

I noticed it because she usually doesn’t let me notice.

She has a physical deformity. She was born with it.

And I don’t think I ever really thought about what that meant for her.

Not as a child.

Maybe not even as an adult.

Because she just did everything.

The house.

The children.

The groceries.

The festivals.

Every tradition remembered.

Every little thing taken care of.

For years.

I grew up seeing all of this and thinking,

That’s Ma.

Not—

Ma is doing all of this despite her body.

Not—

This must be exhausting.

Just—

That’s Ma.

And I think that is what I missed.

I didn’t see the effort because she had become so good at hiding it.

Last year she had her knees operated on.

She recovered so quickly that the doctors were surprised.

I remember being so proud.

I told people about it.

Look at her.

She bounced back so fast.

I made her recovery into a story about her strength.

And now I’m wondering—

what else have I done that with?

How many times have I looked at something my mother survived and called it strength without ever wondering what it took out of her?

Last week she was sitting in my house and she was in pain.

A lot of pain.

And this time, she wasn’t managing it well enough for me to look away.

And something in me just...

collapsed.

Not the therapist.

Not the woman who knows what to do when someone is falling apart.

Not the woman who can sit with someone else’s pain and stay present.

Me.

Five years old.

Looking at my mother and wanting someone to make it stop.

I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

I wanted to help her.

But help her how?

And from what?

And why did it suddenly feel like I was supposed to be able to fix this?

Maybe because somewhere inside me, my mother was never supposed to be the one who needed help.

She was the one who helped.

Ma can manage.

Ma will figure it out.

Ma will recover.

Ma will keep going.

And maybe she will.

She has.

But what if I have mistaken her capacity for her experience?

What if she was tired and I only saw that she had finished everything?

What if she was scared and I only saw that she kept going?

What if there were days she wanted someone to take care of her and I only knew that dinner was on the table?

That thought is sitting badly with me.

Because I realise I have known my mother so much through what she did.

She was the person who made things happen.

The person who remembered.

The person who managed.

The person who kept traditions alive.

The person who recovered.

The person who could be counted on.

And maybe that is how mothers disappear a little inside their own families.

Not because nobody loves them.

But because everyone gets so used to what they do for us that we stop seeing the woman who is doing it.

I don’t know when my mother’s strength became infrastructure for my life.

I just know that I stopped noticing it.

And perhaps I needed to.

I was a child.

I needed my mother to be able to handle things.

But I am not a child anymore.

And I am looking at her differently now.

Not just as my mother.

As a woman.

A woman who was born into a body that asked more of her.

A woman who still raised children, ran a home, carried traditions, showed up for everyone.

A woman who may have been frightened sometimes.

A woman who may have been exhausted.

A woman who may have wanted to fall apart and simply couldn’t.

And I don’t know why I never thought to ask.

Were you scared?

When you were young?

When your body hurt?

When you had your surgeries?

When you were doing everything for everyone?

Did you ever want someone to tell you,

You don’t have to manage this today.

I don’t know.

I have spent so many years understanding mothers.

Understanding children.

Understanding survival.

And yet there is something about looking at your own mother in pain that can undo all the understanding.

Because suddenly I wasn’t the therapist.

I wasn’t the adult.

I wasn’t even the daughter who knew what to say.

I was five.

And my mother was hurting.

And for the first time, I could see something I had somehow missed all these years.

I don’t just know my mother as the woman who carried everything.

I don’t know if I ever stopped to know the woman who had to carry it.

And that is the part I can’t quite put down.

I think I want to ask her now.

Not what happened.

Not how she managed.

Not how she recovered.

Just—

Ma, were you scared?

I wish I had asked sooner.