For the Two Women in My Life

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I grew up with a single mother.

Across the street from us, my grandmother.

These two women helped shape who I am.

They are not perfect women, but no woman is perfect.

As they age, their imperfections amplify.

And they are aging.

I can’t stop that.

I hear it in their voices.

I see it on their faces.

The two women, the two imperfect women who made sure that I led a life different from their own, are not ageless.

They’re imperfect and they’re aging.

These were two traits unfamiliar to me as a child.

Neither woman could own either characteristic.

Both women were my world.

And they continue to be, though the dynamic has changed.

It changed sometime when I was not looking.

These two imperfect women are not indestructible.

And I can’t stop that.

If I could, I’d take all their emotional or physical ache, their moments of loneliness, their times of frustration, their seconds of confusion and seal it in a box, sending it out to sea.

I want to fix, to change, to erase, every time they hurt.

And that is how the dynamic has changed.

I want to be the mother, to control what is often out of my control; I want to shield the two women in my life from any pain whatsoever.

Happy Mother’s Day, my two beautiful, magical, imperfect women.