I remember that day like it was yesterday.
A cold February. The 23rd. 2016.
Eight years ago.
Endless rain.
The water drenched my school uniform until my toes were swimming in my shoe soles, until I couldn’t distinguish the rain from my tears.
I remember that day like I was just living it. It is an unforgettable memory, one bruised black and blue, an ever-pressing thought that itches the back of my skull whenever I realize what I am missing.
My mom knew she was going to die.
She knew for months, for weeks, for days, for hours, for minutes, for seconds. Every breath she took, she knew, and I wish I knew that, too. Maybe it would have lessened the blow.
And so, I am 8 years old again.
I am getting ready for school, snatching my bookbag from the table, shoving my books inside hastily. I’m calling for my sister, screaming from the top of the staircase that we had to go. I didn’t want to get detention for being late again. I couldn’t.
So, when I don’t see her, I trek the stairs up to the room with the illuminating light at the end of it.
Just then, she comes out and looks at her face…it’s sardonic. Disbelief is palpable. It mars her lips into a frown, her eyes distant, faraway, far from me.
She looks up at me finally and tells me that Mom is calling for me…”Just go inside.”
And so, I do.
Mom is sitting on the bed, her pajama pants draped over her meaty thighs, her shiver racking her bones. She is already looking at me when I look at her, and I see something in her eyes I just can’t place. It rattles my little self. Everything in that moment does. The blood that has cracked her lips, the smile that blooms from it. It’s a waiting game, and I am waiting for the worst.
She knows this. I know she does. It’s why she reaches her hands out, her manicured nails calling for my chipped ones. She beckons and I come over, and I stand there, frozen for a moment.
And she’s looking at me, her eyes so glassy, I could see right through them. There’s brokenness there, her despair so potent, I taste it. Mom never cries. Not for anything, and yet, she’s in front of me, tearing up. I want to say something, but she shakes her head and smiles.
Her hands cup my face.
She traces over my eyebrows. The dark marks that speck my temple. The roundness of my cheeks. My chubby nose. My tiny lips. It’s like she is memorizing everything, remembering me just like this, like it’s the last she’ll ever be able to do it.
She pulls me into her arms and squeezes me so tightly, I feel I can’t breathe. Her arms are suffocating me, the weight of her chest is smothering mine, and I don’t know what to do or what to say. I just know I am scared.
“Boom Boom.”
It’s what she called me all the time. My nickname. It’s etched in my mind the way she says it, almost as if there is an aftertaste. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow. She says it and pats my head, holding closer, right to my neck, and I can smell her. Flowers and the tiniest scent of the hospital. She was a nurse that worked endless shifts, and the smell always came with her.
I remember I asked her what’s wrong.
I beg her to tell me. I whisper it at first and then I start yelling it, but all she does is laugh. Her wonderful laugh, full of life, colored in mirth. She laughs into my hair and pulls me away, her lips pinched into a tight smile. She looks at me as if I’m her world, like the universe is right there in front of her.
And every thought leaves my head.
Every single thought.
At this moment, it’s just us. It’s our world.
A tear falls from her eye.
“No matter what you do on this earth, no matter who you become, I will always be proud of you. You know that, right? Nothing could ever make me disappointed in you. Nothing. Nothing you could do could ever change my love for you. It’s infinite. It’s here. It’s always here.”
She touches my heart.
“I’m always here. I’m never leaving you. I will never leave you, Ismony. I promise you.”
It’s word for word. It’s in my head. It circulates just as confusion permeates.
And as I ask her why she’s talking like that with tears in her eyes. She just smiles and kisses my forehead. She holds me again and kisses me once more, slower this time, voice soft and innocent, her lips slowly rolling into her mouth as she pulls away.
“I just wanted you now. I’ll be home when you get back from school.”
She wasn’t home when I got back from school.
She didn’t come home at all.
She went somewhere else and deep down, I know it was heaven.