This Is Not About My Mother
by Addie Coleman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
by Addie Coleman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The two most poetic days of my life involved my mother, but I will not write about them. I could write of the first; the day she died, the moment her last heartbeat pulsed on the side of my head, but I will not. I could write of the second where the dusty remnants of her stricken body poured down a Hawaiian waterfall I had hiked with her only the year before. I could write of the way I prayed for the angels that day we let her go—or of their arrival, but I will not. I will not write of my mother. She is a tired matter—an exhausted heartbreak. Only because there are absolutely no words in this godforsaken language that will ever do her even a morsel of justice. Not in life and not in death. This is not about my mother. This is about me. This is about how after twenty years of living I finally feel learned enough to speak of myself. You do not care about what I believe, or what I have learned. My mother did but this is not about my mother. I love my life. I love my family and my friends. I love most things much more than I probably should. I love what I love because of my mother but this is not about my mother. I believe in women—in a sisterhood misunderstood. I want to help them. I believe in women mostly because of the way that I believed in my mother but this is not about my mother. I love school. I love learning—growing, if you will. There are places in this world where girls will never receive an education because they are just that—girls—and that lies heavy on my heart. I was not born to be a teacher but I love the ones who were. My mother hated school but loved the way I loved it. My mother was the only teacher who ever taught me about womanhood but this is not about my mother. I love the stars, but so does everyone else. I must love them differently because they also make me ache. They make everything feel so far away. I do not need my mother to feel any further away—this is not about my mother. This is about me—about how I feel like my own for the first time. In the kindest way—I do not care what people think. I do not care how I am seen. I care about how I love the ones who need me. And the rest is mine. Not yours. Not my mother’s. Mine. I am alive in this moment because I have found so much to live for. I am alive in this moment because of all that I thought would kill me and did not—could not. Really, I am alive in this moment because my mother made me from the inside out. But this is not about my mother—this is about me. And I am about my mother.
Addie Coleman aspires to be an advocate for women afflicted by interpersonal violence of any kind. Though young, she has lived a storied life, and she believes in the power of words. This is her first publication.