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 (more…)