Methods of Exposition: Illustration: Mothers

Mothers: the invisible people

Mums

        Mothers are the only true saints. From them spring the scum of the earth and the angelically good. Somehow they love either one equally. Little, sticky handprints weave their halos; the tears forebeared, wash their robes.

        "Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top." My mother pulled me close to her and rocked me in the rocking chair. I felt too hot---body heat stifled me and the steady pulse of her heart drove me insane. I always hated to be rocked. My mother still hugged me, but she gave up trying to cuddle her oldest girl. "How are you ever going to get married if you can't stand being hugged?" she teased as time passed. I rolled my eyes. 

        My mother, commonly known as Elizabeth Bauman, is a woman of unsuspected magnitude. If someone saw her in a crowd they probably wouldn't give her a second glance. Her short, ash blonde hair takes hours to prepare in order for my mother to feel decent. I suppose that it's her one vanity. A good Dutch face, gift of her immigrant parents, is her visage---round, florid and blessed with the high cheek bones that she passed on. Set into this landscape are two clear blue eyes. They are perceptive. They cry, forgive and sparkle when my dad wraps his arm around her. (She always says that she married a hottie---the most wonderful man in the world.) Her nose carries its own story, broken from a youthful encounter with barbed wire. One wonders what happened to her thumbs. Mismatched, the left mirrors one parent and the right thumb, the other. Her body has sags now. Not rolls and creases like many women who have become tired from children and the lure of deep fried treasures. It is simply there---solid to mimic her mind. Once she was a perfect hour glass. Her list of admirers is substantial. Perhaps that says something for her figure, yet I almost suspect it whispers more about her soul.

        My mum will literally work herself into the grave someday. I am away at college and learn to manage my own laundry, food, room maintenance. I come home and everything is lost. I unlearn my tidy ways, sitting on the couch as my mother lays dryer warm sheets on my bed. I offer to help her so many times. Does she enjoy stirring over a hot stove? Every time guilt nips me, she sweeps away my good intentions. I am the oldest child--graduated, yet I will always be that angelically grinning baby that she bedecked with bows and baby boots. 

        It must be a shock for her to hear me confess such things as I do. In her day she was aware but not inclined. I've done everything. Each blot made boldly, but somehow I always end up sobbing at the unflickering love in her eyes. It breaks me more than one thousand strong men. In her forgiveness is the deepest remorse. 

        She never went to college. Neither of my parents graduated from high school either. I am the first, and my mum glows with pride. I tell her that I'm going to be a teacher. She gets this distant look in her eyes and remembers her dreams to be a lawyer. She became a mother instead. Now she vacuums floors and tutors children with behavioral issues. Did that strange person I glimpsed within her die?

        Mothers are the closest mysteries. You can know them intimately your whole life and never realize their true person. While everyone else has thoughts, emotions, gifts and dreams, our mothers seem to less complex beings. It's only when we begin to see them in a different light that their life becomes quite beautiful.

Author's Note

PLEASE REVIEW!!!! I love writing, and I want to become better.