Immigration · Life story · Love · Perspectives ·Jan 30, 2017

My Mother’s Portrait

My Mother’s Portrait. A piece dedicated to the strongest soul I know. Read it. Remind yourself that some do not chose to immigrate. That for some to immigrate is to leave behind the comfort of their heart, case it is to seek better knowing you spirit may never settle.

An insight into a woman that did not chose to immigrate for the benefits that it would bring to her, cialis 40mg but for the life that her beloved country could not provide for her children. Selfless in character and strong by nature. This is my Mother’s Portrait.

Angola is where her heart resides, cialis 40mg where her soul will rest, where her spirit will fill with genuine happiness. Britain is where she has held her family together; where she endured through a series of breaking points; where she has, and will, successfully see all three of her children through university; where she has become a grandmother to a child that is an undeniable reflection of her and where she, and her husband of 25+ years, have matured in age.

I should’ve recognised and appreciated her struggle from a younger age. From the days where the grip of her hand could have cut the circulation of mine, as we walked down our street, surveilled by some of our vocally racist neighbours who populated the small community we had settled in.

From the days where I’d often come home from school to find her sat on the edge of the sofa, in the discomfort of a cold atmosphere, gazing into a blank television with the home phone on her lap. A simple phone call, from a world she had left behind, was enough to populate the tears that I had witnessed slowly dry on the surface of her cheeks. Often it was an Aunty that begged for financial aid to afford the electricity that rarely inhibited the fours walls she called a home. Infrequently, it was the news of a cousin that had passed away as a result of an illness that could’ve been cured in a developed country, or a murder that could’ve solved in a state where justice is commonly served.

I never asked her about it. I didn’t know how. I simply stood at the doorway of the living room, absorbing the scene, recording her pain, engraving it into my memory, before taking delicate steps towards embracing her. Once the moment had passed, her unbreakable strength made it hard for one to believe that she had ever been that weak. Over the years, the stills in my memory have become enough to publish a whole a picture book.

Strength and bravery she knew how to depict, but affectionate emotion she did not know how to show. This was no fault of her own, for one struggles to express what they themselves have not felt (as my Father had often put it so very often). The paternal love that all young girls can come to depend on was stolen from her from a cowardly man that had rejected her as his own. The maternal love that can guide and comfort a young adolescent was cut short at the death of her mother, and thus was never replaced.

But despite her inability to generically articulate her maternal affection, she loves me. This I have always known. Her overly protective nature told me so. From the way in which she’d make me wear at least 5 layers in the winter season (fearing I’d catch a cold), to how she’d scowled me for grazing my knees after failing to chase after my brothers; because for every ache, sickness or discomfort that I felt, she felt it a hundred times heavier- and this showed in her expression.

To settle in an unfamiliar part of the world; to leave behind all you have ever known; to gamble the entirety of your whole life away, for the dream of providing a stable, safe and guarded lifestyle, with the best quality of education, for your two young boys and even younger girl; to persevere through the most inhumane acts of discrimination; to hold out hope for better days; to be brave through it all; to be the glue, the mediator, to have held a family together; to never have turned your back, retraced your steps and left that is the greatest expression of love.

This is your portrait.

I thank you, I live for you, I love you.

Written by Rossana Rocas

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