With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Mama
It’s a strange thing to become a mom when the only example you ever had wasn’t even your own mother. Not that I don’t think of ’Buela as my parent, but I also know that the way she raised me was different from how she raised my own father, that she thinks she failed by him and wants to make sure she doesn’t fail me. That she’s tired, and although she loves Babygirl, she wishes things could be easier for me. For us.
If I said I didn’t have a ton of questions about my mother, I’d be lying. All the time I catch myself thinking: Would she be proud of me? If she were around, would I have gotten pregnant and had Babygirl? If she were still alive, would my father have stayed in Philadelphia?
From my mom’s family I only keep in touch with her oldest sister, Aunt Sarah. She still lives in North Carolina and the only time I met her I was too young to remember: it was at my mom’s funeral. We used to only talk during random phone calls around the holidays, but ever since she got a smartphone a few years back we’ve begun emailing once or twice a month. She sends me family recipes when she has a moment to type them out, although she cooks the way I do: no actual measurements, only ingredients and partial directions. When I remix the recipes and make them my own, I send them back to her so she can see how her niece hooked it up. She’s invited me to come down south in the summer, but the summers are when Julio visits me, and after having Babygirl, I couldn’t imagine traveling so far with her or without her. But I hold this connection close, since Julio never talks about my mother, and ’Buela just didn’t know her well enough to tell me much. Sometimes Aunt Sarah’s recipes will include a tidbit about my mother trying that food for the first time.
My mother’s name was Nya, and I thought about making that Babygirl’s middle name, but it didn’t feel right, when I never knew her. I didn’t know what kind of future I would be handing down to my daughter by pressing a name on her from the past. ’Buela raised me pretty superstitious about things like that.
Can you miss someone you never met? Of course, the answer is yes. I’ve made up a story about who my mother was, and I miss that person whether it’s how my actual mom would have been or not. I imagine her patient, but strict. Someone who would paint her nails with me, and straighten my hair, and take me prom-dress shopping, but who would also demand good grades, and go to every parent-teacher conference, and wouldn’t just say my food was good, but give me tough criticism.
On my bedside is a picture of my mother and father holding hands. He’s wearing an Iverson jersey and she’s in straight-leg jeans and a bright-blue T-shirt with a smiley face over her large belly. I’m the lump under the smiley face. It’s the only picture I have of the three of us: my parents cheesin’ and in love and holding hands, and me fully formed inside her belly, knocking on the door of skin, impatient to get out before everyone left.