Pieces of a Woman

10

I am troubled. I need to start somewhere and I have no idea where. I suppose I can ask granny but she wouldn't keep secret family hidden from us. Would she? She hasn't been the most honest lately... but the last time I asked her about something that seemed personal she avoided the question perfectly. What was I asking about again? The letters! I was asking her about the mysterious letters that seemed to kickstart my mother's depressed downward spiral. They were from a person, obviously someone special to my mother as news from them affected her mood so strangely. Maybe a distant relative? Or an old friend with a good heart. I'll start there.
But what if I dont like the news that I get? What if there is no news at all? But most of all, what if the letters lead me to my mother? I had not thought about the letters so in depthly before. I never thought that they could matter to me the way they mattered to my mother. Reading these letters could be like opening Pandora's Box. They could open up a world of hurt or release the same demons into me that they released into my mother. But my mother was no saint or superwoman. And I've stopped idolizing her. Maybe being away from her smile or her voice or her encompassing love is the cause for my reality check but I have learned something from her disappearance.
Stripping away our mothers' humanity is harmful to them and to us. And not dehumanizing in a bad way but more like the type of dehumanizing that deifies someone. The dehumanizing that calls our mothers "super strong" or "goddesses" is almost as bad as the other kind. Because our mothers are not super human. They are just people. They cry like us and hurt like us and they feel just like us. And when we take that away from them, and force them to be strong and stable, it takes away their right to just be human. I know now that I looked at my mother in a God-like way growing up. And when her depression hit and she fell from pedestal that I placed her on, a pedestal that she never asked for, I resented her for it. I resented her for not being what I thought she was. I resented her for being human. And I have suffered from this anger that I hold. I'm still angry, but at least now I know why. And because I still have so many unanswered questions for her and about her, I will always be angry until I get my answers. This thought gives me the gumption I need to ask Granny about the letters. So I sit up in the hospital chair and think about what exactly to say. Once I figure it out, I make myself as light as possible so that I seem casual when I ask her.
"Granny," I call to her. She turns her head to me slowly. Nervous, for both the question and the answer, I twirl a piece of hair around my finger.
"Yes honey?"
"I have a question and I know that I've asked before but I need a real answer this time," I explain.
"Go ahead," she encourages me.
"Mom seemed to get worse when those letters came in the mail and you were never a fan of the sender... who were they from?" I flinch in preparation for disappointment.
"Why are you asking me this?" she questions me. "What did Sister Sarah tell you?" She seems panicked.
"Sister Sarah? What are you talking about granny was she supposed to tell me something?" I'm confused, what does Sarah have to do with any of this? Her heart rate monitor increases and I cross the floor to calm her.
"Shh, shh don't worry granny I was just curious. It's ok relax," I coo softly at her. She calms down and I decide that asking her is a bad place to start, especially with her ailing health. I wait for her to fall asleep and then I scoop up Aaliyah and leave the room.
As I leave the hospital, my mind races. Sister Sarah? Those two have been extremely weird both together and apart lately.. Yesterday with the whispers and the strange words. Sarah with her story and questions about the box.. The Box! Why did she want me to have it? What's in it? Anticipation gets my adrenaline rushing and I throw Aaliyah on my back and practically sprint towards our apartment.
Once there, I make Aaliyah a nice lunch and sit her in front of the tv so that I could have a moment to focus. Where did I put the box? I came in the day she gave it to me and I cried on the couch for hours.. The couch. I get on my knees to check underneath the couch where I must have slung The Box in my frustration. And sure enough, Abby Cadabby smiles at me from the old discolored metal and I grin back. It's time to spill your secrets old friend.
I crack open the lid and underneath, lies a pile of papers. I pick them up cautiously, not knowing where they came from or what they are. I lift the first pages I see and turn them over, letters. No, just one letter, two pages long. And underneath, a stack of envelopes. I examine the papers in my hand and decide to begin with the one that starts with;

"I hope you find this letter, and I hope that it finds you, and that when you are together, you'll hear my story well and true,"