a mother's love

When I was a kid, my mom used to sew all our Halloween costumes. I remember going to the fabric store, poring through all the patterns, selecting the perfect costume, and treasure hunting just the right fabric.

One year I chose a harlequin clown costume. It was the pompoms and neck ruffle that won me over. I wore that costume with pride and a few years later, my little brother donned it too. Truth be told, he wore it better than me, with his shocking red hair.

Years later, and I can’t remember why exactly, maybe I was already nostalgic about the past, she remade the same costume in a different color story for my teenage body.

This is that costume. I am revisiting it once again. Sitting here today, it means something different than it did back then. Or way back then.

Today it reminds me of my mother’s love. Her specific way of loving. All these little acts of service. Her attention to detail. And like the harlequin, she was a heart-rending mixture of humor and sadness.

The thing is, I mostly saw the sadness. I didn’t even know she was funny, she was just my mom. It’s only in hearing other people tell stories about her, recount her Nancyisms, point out her humor, that I realize, oh shit, she was pretty funny. I wish I had noticed it sooner.

She spent much of her life (or at least the life I knew with her) trying to keep her head above water. With mixed results.

So that’s what we have here. A mother’s love. In black and white. Fuzzy. Amorphous. Melancholic. Somewhere between sinking and floating. Beautiful.