The Maid

Pina Colada

I honestly think that my mothers death affected those around her more than it ever did herself. It's a bold statement to make I know,but I was around her at every moment in her last years.

I saw how her illness directly brought about different emotions and actions in not only her but others. Day in and day out my mother was flooded with people giving their condolences to her as if she were already dead. They would apologize for her pain and suffering, with ofcourse the add in to me as well.

"We are so sorry sweetie" they would say smiling sympthetic smiles with their eyes crinkled eys as they looked down at the little girl who's mother was on her death bed.

My Mom was the strongest person I had ever known and I will probably never meet another one like her.

My Dad once told me when she first got the news that she was terminally ill they were sat in the doctors office next to eachother. My Dad couldn't hold it together and understandably wept into his hands,excess tears falling on his old blue jeans.

But my Mother? For a second or so she had a look on her face my father described as seeing a ghost standing at the foot of your bed. Total utter shock washed over her face as fast as she reacted, she went back to normal. Unfased by the morbid news Dr.Hawley had just informed her my father told me all she had simply stated was " Is that all? I have to pick up my daughter at school."

Just thinking of the faces on both my father and the doctor make me laugh, my mother had this natural shock factor in the way she acted I supppose. Again not focusing at all on her self rather on her daughter. She never ceased to amaze me with her fortitude.

My Father on the other hand was a totally different case. He had alwasy been a mans man, watching sports with the guys and drinking an occasional beer or two. But god did he love that woman, still does now just as much as he did when he first said those fateful words many years ago. He was completely and utterly destroyed my her death.

My father loves to talk about that day far to often. But I don't mind, it gives me a sense of who my mother really was. After all I only had a few years with her that I can actually remember.

I find it quite strange that we can't remember the first few years of our lives. It's almost like we are zombies, but still possessing human functions. We are still an exoskeleton of a person but inside we are nothing but a heartbeat and blood.

We awake each day, eat our pre decided meals courtesy of our mothers, play with our toys and our friends, then end the day off sleeping. But that's all a blur; erased from our minds. Our fundamental years of learning as if they never happened.

Sure we have witnesses to say it all happened,but how can we be sure? It's kind of like time travel in a way. You see my theory is that when we are young our brains throw away our memories in spite of how stressful our human being in the making process was.

Think about it, when you are just a few days old you are suddenly in a whirl wind of learning. Milestones are accomplished in the first few days of life.It's too much for our little brains to comprehend so it's just rendered as a useless memory.

When I was upset about my mothers death my father used to lie down with me in my bed and tell me the story of the day they met .It was almost like a fairy tail the way he described it.He tells the story with such detail and happiness, that I don't know if I'll be able to do it justice, so I'll just use his words

"A long time ago I met the woman of my dreams, the woman I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with. She had the skin of a thousand summers, massive curly brown hair with fringe that tangled with even the slightest of movement, and beautiful gleaming hazel eyes that were the size of the moon. She laughed like god,with her head thrown back wildly. That woman could light any darkness,she bewitched me. "