Dear Elizabeth:

We have things in common: my mother was born into and grew up in colonialism, admiring all that is European and thinking very little of herself- for having the darkest skin of all her siblings, as well as facial/ body features that were not European. Of course, women’s emancipation wasn’t anything she grew up with, and the way for a woman to advance herself materially was.. through a well-to-do man, attracting such a man through the promise of sex.

Like your mother, my mother too has had  “so many unlived dreams and aspirations”, one of which- I thought- was that I was the one to make her dreams and aspirations come true. I tried, failed.. and she helped me fail.

“I realise that I have a long journey ahead of me and I am going to feel more pain because there are more things that I need to acknowledge“- the pain I am in touch with this morning, it feels like a dull pain at this point, is that I loved my mother so very much but she did not love me back. … Do you feel that your mother loved/ loves you? (You are welcome to not answer this question.. and/ or any question that I ask).

“And so how then can they ‘show low and validation’ to their children when they don’t even know how to do that for themselves?“- my mother never valued me as a person, but as a Thing, and I understand it being that she had a terrible childhood and a terrible life.. but thing is, my uncle, that is, her brother, although he had a terrible life too and suffered severe epilepsy.. I have this clear memory (in the midst of what appears to be childhood amnesia) of him asking me questions about.. what I thought about this or that. He asked me questions as if what I thought mattered.. I was shocked.. he wanted to know what I thought.. it is still difficult for me to get over how different that was for me. He asked me questions with those empathetic and curious eyes, and a kind voice. My mother was sitting there to his left, looking at me with angry, threatening eyes, so I was afraid of answering him, afraid of expressing my true thoughts.. but I remember him asking.

anita