since sunday night, everyone’s been up in arms about the house of the dragon finale. since sunday night, i’ve been up at night thinking about how i’ve slowly become defensive of alicent hightower because she reminds me of my mother.
When I say my mother deserved better, people think I’m speaking about my father. A good thought, but deeply incorrect. My father and mother were meant for each other.
I once saw a TikTok where someone asked if you had to choose between allowing your mother to meet her soulmate (meaning there’s a chance you wouldn’t exist) or keeping your parents together to keep the life you have, which one would you choose? I commented that it wouldn’t matter because the two situations were identical.
Still, I recognize that she still deserved better than the cards she was dealt. She deserved better than how people treated her when she was younger.
She wasn’t supposed to have me. ( We run parallel here. I don’t want to bear a child. ) Her tubes were tied and I managed to be conceived. My first and middle name together mean ‘life exalted’. She chose it because she deems me a miracle.
That time I spent floating inside of her before she found me made me an echo of her, I think. We both are drawn to the water—the ocean mainly—and I feel we have the same grief living inside us. She’s able to get under my skin the easiest because I know we’re the most similar.
When she got sick, I was the one at home taking the brunt and even now I’m the sister who both complains about her and understands this version of her the most. As I get older, I find I need her more than ever.
Carole is a feminine name of French origin. It is a variant of Carolus, derived from Charles, and ultimately originated from the Germanic Karl, meaning ‘man’ or ‘army.’
My mother is strong—too strong at times. She knows nothing better than how to survive. Is this a condition of motherhood? The sadness, the survival, and the loss of a life of your own?
When I ask, she never answers. She often ignores.
Last night, I sang ‘Get Into The Groove’ by Madonna terribly as I cleaned up after dinner.
‘I didn’t know you were a singer,’ my mother teased.
She’d heard me in the kitchen. Floating past, she casually said, ‘Madonna will always be my favorite’. She sang a fragment of ‘Holiday’ before making a mug of lemon balm tea with honey and languishing on the chaise in the family room with our dog at her feet.
Her simple confession dropped into the space between us like a pearl of milk and she had no idea that I was lapping at it like a dog. I resisted the urge to press for more, ashamed of my desperation. She’s like a spooked animal: if I keep begging for more of her she’ll shy away.
I can’t help it sometimes. She and my father had me when they were older and I may not get the important life events with them the way my sisters have. I think of it all the time.
As a result, I keep what I know of my mother in a box in my head. If I were to describe it it would probably be a vintage shoebox in a shadow of yellow light that reminds me of early morning, sluggish in the sun.
I count my trophies, putting them to the side as I speak: her favorite color is yellow, she loves Mamma Mia, she likes yellow roses, she likes blueberry jam and banana bread. I count another set: South of France, Paris, Pedro Almodóvar movies, goat milk, lavender, soy candles, the beach, Charleston, etc. And now: Madonna is her favorite.
I put the lid back on because if I think too hard I’ll lose focus.
Someone once said the quality of a person’s childhood is dependent on the level of their mother’s happiness. I have mixed feelings about this statement—it toes the line between exceptionally on the mark and somewhat. . .victim-blamey—but it’s an accurate description of the way my view of the world was inherently skewed by my mother’s blatant depression and her refusal to label it.
My childhood was warm and perfect in my mind, a slur of joy and a time I’m not sure if I wish to go back to or just to recreate. My mother’s struggles weren’t apparent to me then. I didn’t have the awareness of how much she carried with her.
My mom is vibrant, firm, and stubborn like the double Taurus she is, and marked by the loss of her mother when she was only 16. She grew up in Jacmel, a port town on the south coast of Haiti. She loved her maternal grandmother, who had a farm and introduced her to the taste of homegrown coffee.
Even now, my mother gardens in her free time—a habit that lingers from that time. We harvest squash, tomatoes, basil, cilantro, and peppermint every summer. We tried watermelon this year but it didn’t take.
( I’m the daughter of two gardeners. My father has raised forests of overgrown, white hydrangea and other plants I don’t know the name of. I’m not sure if I have a green thumb—I’ve never tried—but I often worry about what will happen to the house when they pass. I think I’ll learn to try and keep it up. Hopefully, if I’m terrible at it the love will somehow keep it alive. )
She was shifted off to an aunt who mistreated her, but who she remains incredibly grateful to regardless. I hold my own grudge against that woman for her but hold my tongue when my mother speaks. I’d rather listen than correct her because at least I’m learning about her.
It’s one of those situations that come with immigrant parents. They go through the worst of something, but pretend it didn’t happen. Sometimes they acknowledge it but then wield gratitude like a shield as if proclaiming gratefulness will somehow absolve them of the weight of their trauma.
She can be ever pessimistic but oddly remains one of the sole people in my life who urges me to see a silver lining when I can. Maybe it’s because she knows what it’s like to live differently.
She introduced me to Audrey Hepburn movies, to Sofia Coppola via Marie Antoinette. So much of me as a little girl can be traced back to the rug now replaced on our living room floor, where the bones of my butt (ischial tuberosities) ached fiercely as she did my hair.
She always insists she loves all of us the same. She is our harshest critic, or at least mine other than myself.
This morning she told me ‘I don’t love any one of you more. All three of you came from my guts.’
Maybe this is the reason my Mother Wound is enormous and difficult to bear. The space is gaping because her guts are hanging out of me. As one internet blogger writes,
i am unable to hold a grudge against my mother because i know what she went through as a child. — deepfluffycloudmentality on tumblr.
And I am unable to hold a grudge against my mother because she loves me and I know this and it is, on a level, enough. The trauma—if I can even call it that—was not born of abuse or purpose. I don’t think it was alive or that she was aware of it.
I think it is what she carries with her and what is therefore passed down. I think it is a product of her refusal to engage with the mental illness she has and what has gotten worse since The Diagnosis™.
There’s a scene in one of my favorite movies Annihilation (2018) dir. Alex Garland, where Lena ( Natalie Portman ) performs a twisted dance scene with a humanoid version of her. In a spur of sudden movement, she strikes it and because it’s a replica of herself it strikes her back and they fall to the floor together.
Every analysis including that of the actress herself describes it as a physical manifestation of self-destruction. To me, it is a perfect visual of what it means to be the first-generation daughter of an immigrant mother. It is a representation of what it means to understand her and therefore understand parts of yourself.
That is the cycle, that strike that ends up knocking you out.
When I left the womb of my childhood home for university in London, I almost fell apart. I was in a new country, moved forward by the mantra of ‘if my parents could do it, so could I.’
My mother and I became closer, FaceTiming every day which then pewtered out to only a couple times a week. I had to learn to cook for myself. There was no meal plan, only my soft, unscarred hands. But I knew instinctively what to do.
I found myself mirroring the stance of Jessica Zhan Mei Yu who writes,
It was a running family joke that I—the spoiled youngest child, the baby of the family, the princess—was completely useless and clueless in that way.
But I moved away from home and eventually I craved the food I had grown up with. The first time I tried to make curry chicken, I found that my hands knew exactly what to do—blending garlic and onion but not too much, not to the point that “the water came out,” frying it with lots of oil and all of the spices mother had given me until “the oil split.”
Sometimes, my roommates would wander out and comment on how good everything smelled. When asked about cooking methods I used, I found myself unable to answer longer than just ‘my mother’.
At my core, I am a baby: imperfect, still stumbling around and reaching out for her. As the youngest, I was denied who she was with my older sisters. As a daughter, I am denied a full life with her. As a caregiver and through cancer, I was denied the best of her.
She visited me during the Spring (one of our shared favorite seasons), and I took her out to eat at The Ivy. We took thousands of pictures in the ornate bathroom, our faces crinkled in the same manner as we smiled.
She was recovering—and still is—but I know she’s not the same. I don’t know what to do with that.
She went to France with my father last year, something she always wanted to do. I feel no enthrallment toward the country but I can’t go back to Haiti. My country has fallen apart; it’s still falling.
So, I want to go to the French countryside before the end of my life. I want to look into the sun and see if it’s different, if I can see my mother inside it in some place where my grandmother is still alive and she got a different version of the beginning of her life. That’s where the ‘better’ matters.
I at least want to see her drained of sadness. She’s constantly exhausted. I think sometimes all she’s ever wanted is to sleep.
I used to be afraid of becoming like her. Now, I don’t mind the thought of it too much.
Is it still breaking the cycle if I reach out and hold parts of it instead of all of it like I am holding a hand?
“Wherever we’re headed, this is what we take with us, I thought. Love in the memories. And many, many ghosts.” — Cinelle Barnes, Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir.
note: i almost forgot to extend a thank you to who was a catalyst for this piece. thank you, asa.
This is so beautiful
this is so touching. oh how i feel for mothers- what makes the women who made us. lovely as always, thank you for writing 💗