Mother
Today, I told her the truth. It was her 18th
birthday. She was old enough, wise enough, smart enough, and mature enough.
Today, I told my daughter that I couldn’t conceive a child, and that she came
from someone else. I told her that she is beautiful, she is amazing, I love her
like I carried her, maybe even more, but she came from somewhere else. I
haven’t seen her face fall as it did today. But that look, I would never forget
it. It was the truth, and a necessity, a pain and a blessing.
“Why don’t I have hair like yours and a nose like daddy’s?”
The 10 year old girl had asked me. She was referring to the torrent of crazy
curls that rose from my head, and the long pointed nose that was her dad’s.
What lies I had told her while I had brushed her long straight hair. We gave
her everything. We always wanted what was best for her. So, today, I told her;
Remembering the first time I had held her, having glimpsed her birth mother’s
longing to hold her child. We had closed the ward room and had completed the
formalities with the adoption agency. This 26 year old woman had had a baby,
and she didn’t want to keep it, her boyfriend had not been ready, she could not
bring her up alone in the Indian society. What would people say? Her parents
would be ashamed. So she had had the child in secret: This child who was mine.
I had cried when I brought her home, this baby, with her curious eyes. I had
laughed when she made her first joke, this bright young girl, with her curious
mind. She was a beauty as her mother had been.
Life is not necessarily what makes life, sometimes it is
time and exposure and love that makes life what it is. I gave her that. When
her face grew pale, and morose, I remembered that lady, lying in her bed
weeping, screaming for her child, the child I stole, the child I took away. She
had always wanted her, but the inevitability of the social norms had ripped my
baby away from her own blood. Today, I saw the similarity in them, realising
for the first time that my daughter looked nothing like me. She wasn’t too tall
or too thin, she wasn’t too broad at the hips or thin at the lips. That mother
would have been proud of her daughter’s beauty. No, my daughter. “Are you
okay?” I asked tenderly.
“Can I meet her?”
Other Mother
Today, I told him the truth: I should never have given her
up. It was her 18th birthday. She would be old enough; wise enough,
smart enough, and mature enough. Today, she would be told that she came from me
that was what the adoption files said. I don’t know the child, she maybe
beautiful, fat, maybe gorgeous, maybe a model, but she belongs somewhere else. I know in my heart
that she will want to meet me. And that look when she sees her real mother, I
know that she would never forget it. It was the truth she will know, after so
many years: a necessity, a pain and a blessing.
“Why don’t I have hair like yours and a nose like daddy’s?”
She would have asked her “mother” at some point, I’m sure. Her “mother” had the
curliest hair I had ever seen in my life and her “father”, the longest nose. My
hair is straight, and my husband’s nose pudgy. We would have given her
everything. So, today, I told him that I missed my first child; Remembering the
last time I saw her, having glimpsed her adoptive mother holding her child.
They had closed the ward room and completed the formalities to take my baby
away. This 26 year old putrid soul of a woman had had a baby, and she couldn’t keep
it because her boyfriend was not ready. I could not bring her up alone in the
Indian society. What would people have said? My parents did not know anything;
I kept it a secret, ashamed of having a child: That child who I lost. I had
cried when they took her away, that baby, with her curious eyes. I had screamed
at him, told him to leave me, but he told me we would have others when we were
both ready. When we married, he kept his promise, 3 beautiful boys, but I
missed my eldest daughter. She would be
a beauty at the age of 18.
Life is not necessarily what makes life, sometimes it is
time and exposure and love that makes life what it is. She would be given everything
she has ever wanted; she would not care to meet me. When I thought of this my
face grew pale, I remembered that day, lying in my bed weeping, screaming for
my child, the child they stole, the child they took away. I had always wanted
her, but the inevitability of the social norms had ripped my baby away from me.
Today, I stared out at the garden as I saw my sons play football with their
father. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never meet her. I have my
own family now, it was time to let go of my daughter. No, their daughter. That
was when the phone rang.
“When can you meet her?”
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