Purple Skies, Bloom in London - Yashra A
A dash of spring breeze ran playfully through my morning hair as the atmosphere of London began to get warmer. Just not warm enough to melt the frost forming on the edge of my heart.
Solidified tears had formed on the corner of my eyes throughout the night. Barely blocking my vision. My eyes had caught the sight of my left-side window being left open. I was nearly frozen. My entire bed felt like the Arctic rivers of Sweden, even though my body had been swelling with a scorching fever since the break of dawn.
I awoke from my glacial death-bed, moving my limbs onto a tender and grass-like rug, coated in robin red and indigo yarn. Those who are used to the cold and greyish lands of Western Europe, such as myself, would find the handmade rug to be either a break from humanity or, perhaps, what my landlord had named it.
"Simply ugly and nothing else."
The vibrant and colourful patches seemed oddly comforting. So delicate, yet lively. It was a work of art that demanded sudden patterns. It replicated a colourful storm of ribbons and suchlike.
It would've had dozens of different and exuberant colours and stories, hidden in the patches of childhood within the luscious rug.
If my mother hadn’t died there on the spot.
It’s been six years since the incident, yet my mind cannot get rid of the heart-breaking memory lurking in the corners of my heart. A memory that was nothing but a deadly nightmare. Nothing of it seemed real. Nothing seemed okay. Not even if the twenty-year-old nurse said that everything was going to be fine. It wasn’t and it never will be.
My mother was dead and it was all because of me.
I still remember the situation with great realism and precise details, however, for the risk of my heart then, again, breaking in two, I will recite the story.
In a way that will not always end with me in frozen, chilling tears.
It was 1995. London was barely a place of warmth. Overcast with breath-taking doves that only passed by for migration but never stayed long enough to be seen by locals.
We were not locals, me and my mother. We were extraordinary. Not too luxurious in our placement within London, but just enough to watch the birds rise and fall just like the sunsets on the east side of the city.
While other families were enjoying their summers in towering theme parks and grand hotels on the outskirts of Europe, she and I spent our time in the lovely gardens of Queen Mary Rose. We admired the hollow trunks in which woodpeckers rested their babies and the lovely jacarandas that over-filled the cities of Nupur bushes.
My mother had a knack for knitting. She called it a gift from God, allowing us to create a friend of warmth the same way God gifted us family. Another friend of warmth.
I stared at her when she said this. Understanding every single word. Watching her lips form the letters and her accent attack her from the back. She had spent years perfecting her Swedish nature into a pure English accent but failed every now and then, and that was how I learned to speak. But my mother never gave up, and she didn’t.
I wasn’t like her. No matter how much I wanted to be. No matter how much I longed to replicate her strawberry-blonde strings of hair. Her delicate ocean eyes and skin of milk. Her heart of pure honey.
No matter how many hours she put into teaching me to knit, to place my fingers in the correct places, to mix and match the colour palettes or to embroider a dainty rose, I couldn’t do it like her. Nobody could. I knew from the bottom of my immature and coddled heart that there could be no one in this world like her, and if she was gone, well--eight-year-old me never really thought of that.
One firelit Monday dawn, I rose from our embroidered king-size bed and sneaked some orange and blue yarn from my mother’s drawer and began to knit away in silence.
The task was daunting and horrible, like a punishment for my imperfections, but it didn’t matter. If I spent an hour or a hundred on the rug, I would finish it and gift it to my mother. In silence and love.
I had no sense of time. No idea that my mother was secretly watching me from her bed while I sat on the cold, wooden floor, making creaks every time I nearly quit from rage.
Her words began to ring in my head: ‘Never give up, my darling, you just might regret it.’
All of a sudden, my mother’s warm-hearted arms tangled around my shoulders as she grabbed my arms and slowly led me into finishing the rug. The world became silent as my only focus came on the warmth of mother’s fingers and luscious locks shifting slightly against my cheeks. The morning was filled with mixed feelings of pride, embarrassment, and gratefulness.
I became lost within my mind. My soul. I did not realise how my mother was slowly, gradually, withering away. She was supposed to take her medicine that morning but no--she was knitting some weirdly-coloured rug for her own daughter. The daughter that was meant to give her medication to her ill and dying mother.
A selfish, worthless girl.
I was the reason such an angelic and perfect human was rid from this imperfect world.
I was the reason she didn’t take her pills that morning.
I was the reason she could never knit again.
I was the reason she never got married.
I was the reason she got to never complete her dreams.
I killed my own mother.
It was too late when I awoke from my fantasy only to feel my mother’s arms letting go of the knitting needles.
How cold her skin had gotten.
That morning, she let go of her life. That morning, I let go of my hope.
No matter how many times the nurse reassured me that God was on our side, I wasn’t really sure of that.
I hated myself. I still do.
That morning, all my mother had left me was a task. A task to finish the rug and finally gift it to her. The one thing I swore I could never do.
But this morning was different.
I looked back at my bed, imagining my sweet mother lying on the other side, then I opened her drawers after six years, grabbed her yarn, and began to knit.
I spent all day completing the rug. Interweaving each colour and patch with intimate feeling and emotion. Something only obvious to my mother. I redid the parts where I knew they were incorrect, slowly bringing back all the tricks and lessons my mother had taught me at the time. Every now and then, I looked back at the window and watched the gaze of spring-blooming. The generous jacarandas at my front door.
My body was filled with ambition. The warmth of my mother’s soul. It began to gradually melt away the paradox of glaciers at the edge of my heart. My mind was racing, yet patient, waiting to see the final product.
It was approximately 5.00pm when my mother’s voice arrived through my head. She stated a phrase. A phrase of permission: "My girl, you have done it. Reach it to me and my soul will be free."
I exited the apartment and strode along the paths of London. I passed by Queen Mary Rose Garden. Something I hadn’t done in weeks if not months. I took in a delicate and fresh zephyr, glanced once more, and strode off on my journey.
At last, I had reached the cemetery, though no more walking was needed, for my mother’s grave was right at the gate. A tingle of pain arose in my body. My chest began to ache. I tried hard not to cry but before I knew it, a gush of tears flowed down my pink cheeks.
"Mother, forgive me. I am nothing like you. I should’ve--I should've--"
"Shhh… Listen to me, my girl. You have done the right thing. You are correct. You are nothing like me. You are special and unique, and most importantly you are beautiful. Lay down my gift and wish me goodbye."
I did as she said. I laid down the handmade rug in front of her grave. It resembled a static, frozen river, mirroring the evergreen jacaranda tree that blossomed near my mother’s tomb.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was beautiful. The wind carried the fragrance of the flowers towards me, allowing me to breathe in the feeling of achievement and pride.
The last thing I saw in the purple-shadowed cemetery was my mother’s soul kissing me farewell and floating into God’s arms one last time.
Yashra A.
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