Mother.

You always smelled like lavender, like lavender and Ann Taylor perfume. I have a thousand recollections of you wildly writing in journals. You went through them so quickly, filling cardboard boxes with stacked memoirs, words brimming over the edges. I'm sure I get that from you. This urge to write everything down. These word modalities. I always considered you the most beautiful. I remember seeing other mothers, you never looked like them. Beautiful hands, bottomless eyes, and golden hair. I don't remember you smiling before the divorce. I remember watching you break a watch on the driveway. I remember staying in hospitals overnight, when your migraines were unbearable. I remember broken fingers on stove tops.
Childhood, at a glance.

Remember our new house, the one without my father? You were sitting on the counter while I took a bath. I told you that I was glad to see you smiling again, and tears fell down your hollow cheeks. What a profound statement, for a seven year old to claim.

It was always rough for us, wasn't it? Getting by. Day by day. A single mother with four children. We were always happy, though. I don't remember it being as broken as it must have been. I'm not sure how you managed to keep us all alive. To wholeheartedly love us at every fragile corner of our adolescence. I marvel at your success. You vacuumed the floors when you had pneumonia, oxygen equipped to your delicate body. You made coupon books for us on Valentines day, you let us drink eggnog out of wine glasses on Christmas Eve. You added charms to my silver necklace, you checked me out of class for dentist appointments, which weren't really appointments at all, but code for ladybugs and rain coated roads. Driving alone with you, that was my favorite part of childhood. Wearing your lipstick and singing Paula Cole with the speakers. Still, I'm unsure how you did it, Mother. But I love you for it.