Her love was real...
When I was younger I saw many different types of relationships, people in loveless relationships, the nonverbal relationship, the convenient relationship. As a teenager, I was certain that I would not be in a relationship where I would be left unattended or taken for granted. I know what you're thinking: "What, teenagers think like this?" I have grown up with older siblings and being the youngest, I grew up like a little old lady lol. My mother came to the United States to divorce an abusive husband and survived this. My mother was tough and stood her ground when she thought something was wrong. While growing up I witnessed my mother dating men and leaving them as soon as she witnessed the lack of communication or the lack of love that was once there.
When she was about 63 years old she met her last love, Sammy. He chased her for a whole year before she le him into her life. Sometimes she would kick him out and tell him to let her be and because of hist love and patience for her, he would. I was a 13-year-old girl witnessing the love that was building in my mother. Witnessing how this once married man had and this once married woman felt about each other was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I remember asking her what it was that she felt. Her answer: "the world at my feet and the sky in my heart." That made absolutely no sense to me. At the time the world was always at our feet, we were standing on it.
After several failed relationships as I got older and learning that life goes on, I gave into the idea that not everyone finds that love that my mother was talking about. I stayed in relationships that were fun and filled with different experiences but I never truly had that feeling, "the world at my feet and the sky in my heart."
When her Alzheimer's got the best of her Sammy was still making trips to see her. After a couple weekends of not seeing him there with her I bumped into him in the city and asked him what had happened. We sat and spoke for what seemed to be hours. He told me about the first day he met her. We joked and laughed about how crazy my mother was. And still, no answer as to why he stopped visiting. I asked again: "Why don't you come see mommy?" He looked at me with a sad face and a broken heart, "I know she's still in there but she doesn't know who I am." That brought tears to my eyes and I knew then his love for her never did go away. I knew exactly how he felt. She didn't know who I was either.
From that day on I knew I that I would someday find that love and feel it for myself. I wanted to be able to show her that I was loved by someone other than her.
