LITERARY "The Warmth of a Cold Embrace" by:Jasmine Fiona Sanchez

           The Warmth of a Cold Embrace

              By:Jasmine Fiona Sanchez

           

And so, this is what she learns when she is four, ten and sixteen; you’re not worth anything if you do not shine the brightest. She wishes to be the moon, but she is not even the tiniest star. She yells to the ocean and she whispers to the sky and still, she is not seen; still, she is not heard.

It starts, as always, with the familiar walls of the classroom. The air conditioner feels a little bit too cold even in the summer heat and she finds herself eyeing jumbled-up letters she still can't understand.

"Repeat after me, this word is pronounced as it is; 'cat'."

"Cat," she does what she is told.

From the corner of her eye, she sees the beautiful face of her mother watching her from the other side of the classroom. Her mother's smiling—so wide that it makes warmth bubble up in her chest. She wants to take a picture of this moment, make it last longer, and keep it at the back of her mind, so she can't lose sight of the first time she's ever felt happiness.

"You did great."

Here is something she doesn't talk about; making her mother happy isn't exactly the easiest task.

The phrase “you’re gifted,” has been echoing so many times in her mind that she’s starting to think the remark is true. Maybe, she is as smart and talented as others make her out to be. Maybe, she was born into the body of an achiever, someone who can move mountains and part the seas. Maybe, just maybe, the heavens will finally listen to her when they find out that she’s brilliant and vivid; they’ll listen to her wishes to the sky, ‘to make my mother the happiest person on earth’.

They don’t.

The classroom feels more of a home than her own house. Familiarity, a thing she’s gone so long without, exists in the four walls of the classroom. Certainly, it never existed in her family and it struggles to exist in her household. And yet, she knows it does because it exists here—in her classmate’s chatter before the class starts, in her teachers that praise her for her outputs, and in the scattered books across the shelves. She knows it exists because she feels it.

She hopes to feel it in her household too. Sometimes.

Family dinners get quieter as she skips her meals to win more medals, to see the bright smile of her mother again—just like before, the warm beam she’s kept hidden in the darkest nook of her mind. But it never shows up again; not when she finally places first on a Science Quiz Bee, not when she’s got the highest score on a test, and especially not when she wins the essay writing contest she was more than excited about.

It happens when she’s done for this week’s assignment; the slouch of her back and the feeling of tiredness surging through her veins. The burnout.

She keeps working day and night, on her papers and her projects, that she doesn’t realize the bags under her eyes and the thinning of her wrist. She’s had more papers done than meals eaten. It starts as a lump in her throat, and when she finally can’t hold it in, it overflows in the form of tears. The breakdown.

The realization comes when her mother sees her and falls apart in her chest; that what she’s doing isn’t enough to make her happy.

The dozens of gold and silver displayed on the living room’s wall isn’t enough to let her mother smile again—and she breaks into her daughter’s chest, crying and clawing on her shoulders until it’s painful. “I’m sorry,” her daughter says because it hurts, because it feels like it’s her fault. “I’m sorry.”

She feels her mother shake her head. “It’s not your fault,” her mother’s voice breaks. “You’re doing great, I’m sorry for making you feel like you aren’t doing enough.”

And here, in the confines of her room, in the cold embrace of her mother, she shatters. Because it’s painful, but it’s also liberating in a sense—to hear something you’ve been wishing to hear from the heavens for so, so long. Enough. Happiness.

“Thank you,” she says, holding on as she can feel her mother’s soul vanish into thin air. “Are you happy, now?”

“I am,” the transparent image of her mother is slowly disappearing, and she wants to so desperately hold on and keep her in her arms, but she knows she can’t. Her mother smiles, and she can sense this is the last time she’ll ever see it. “You don’t need to do anything anymore. You will always be something to me.”

Something akin to familiarity—comfort and warmth—is what exists in her mother; in her smile as she becomes one with the universe, in her embrace as she comforts her living daughter, and in her last goodbye. The closure.