Today, March 14, would have been my mother’s 62nd birthday. I bought some flowers that she loved to celebrate her, because she was a biologist by education and a flower maniac by fate. Our home once looked like a jungle because of all the plants she looked after. She truly loved it and had a gift for taking care of living things.
She was a wonderful mom, a great wife, a very artistic and beautiful woman. She had a lovely voice and played the piano. When I was a kid, I had a friend in her. She knew all my friends’ names and was always open to the music I shared with her. At some point she had a ringtone from the opening of my favorite anime series lol. She was the most giggly, playful, and kind person I’ve ever known. She had a sensitive soul, but she could be sharp-tongued when she needed to be.
Her childhood wasn’t easy, but she never passed that pain on to me. Maybe that’s why I always felt protective of her and tried to help when her depression slowly grew stronger over the years.
Last night I finally saw her in a dream. Since she died, I had only dreamed of fragments: her voice or the feeling that she was somewhere nearby but missing, and I was always searching for her. But this time she appeared behind me when I turned on the TV. It was a comedy show and suddenly I heard my mom laughing. She was sitting on the edge of the armchair like she had just walked in because she heard the TV. She said she loved that comedian. I told her she should watch her other specials… and then suddenly realized she couldn’t. We both understood it in the same moment of silence. I hugged her tightly and we started crying. I told her how scared I am that one day I might forget her voice or the memories we shared, because now I’m the only one who carries them. She tried to comfort me. She gently patted my hand, which was holding hers so tightly, and said, “Of course you won’t. You have such a good memory.” It sounded both comforting and a little overwhelming at the same time. She cried with me, but still tried to smile through it and calm me down, trying to hold herself together. I asked her to come again, and then I woke up.
