One day, I opened my mouth and my mother’s voice fell out of my lips. I felt her laughter surround me, loud and warm, and I did not look for the source because I knew it was me. It was my laughter resembling hers, my jokes mirroring hers, my facial expressions becoming looks that I only ever saw on her beautiful face.
Someone behind me smiles and says “you sound just like your mother” and for the first time, I do not argue. I do not put my brain to work; comparing and contrasting and searching for all the ways I am different from the woman in whose womb I became life. I smile back because I see it too. I feel it too.
When sarcasm pours from my mouth like venom, I nod because I know now that I learnt even when she wasn’t teaching. I learnt even when she aimed her words like daggers at me and anger roared in my chest. I learnt even when I laughed at her methods and yearned for something different. I learnt even when I complained.
The other day, I told a friend a funny story from my childhood. He was attentive, laughing along with me as I wove my story with my memories as threads. Then, when I finished my tale and we were finally able to tone down our choking laughter, he said: you know, your mother sounds an awful lot like you.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
He responded:
I don’t know… it’s just… what you said your mother did, how she reacted, it’s totally something you can do. In fact, I think you would react the exact same way.
I thought about it a lot later that night. I thought about me in similar situations and I realized he was right. I thought about other scenarios and images from my childhood that I never gave her grace for, and when I put my feet in her shoes, they were my size. I would have done the same. Maybe. I don’t remember whether or not I cried myself to sleep that night, but I remember the heaviness of my chest, and I remember calling my mother being the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning. “I love you, mummy” I said. “Hmm. Anything? Hope everything is okay?” She replied. “I love you too,” I understood.
I wonder about my sisters sometimes. Do they also see our mother in fragments of themselves. Do they also hear her voice in theirs sometimes, or find themselves using her peculiar phrases more often. Do they also now like their fried eggs the way she likes hers: properly done with large chunks of barely fried onions—perfection. Do they see certain pictures of themselves and think “wow, I look a lot like mum here,” and do they, like me, debate within themselves whether or not it’s a good thing that in some ways, we are slowly becoming our mother.
I think I like it.
Sometimes.