Mothers Day

Sitting on the lip of my bathtub, hunched over the edge, dripping and draped in terry cloth I cry out, "Oh God". I pray. More sincerely than I have since I lost my faith. I am certain someone is listening. I am certain of this because I need it to be true. In forty-nine minutes it will be mother's day. I cry out, "Oh God. I love her". And I do. More sincerely than I have since I left the pasture. It is overwhelming and horrifying. After all this, I still love her. After all this she loves me too. How can it be so? Now that I am a heretic Now that I am her failure. After the things we've said to each other. How can there be any love left? I've come back through my mother's pasture, prodigal daughter. Cresting the grassy hill I used to watch all day and long for, wondering if the Northwind felt freer than me. I am looking at her: stubborn and weeping and loving. She always loved me. I was hers before I was even my own. And it is painfully plain. All that transpired beaten trivial under the bludgeoning  of loving and being loved. Mama, when you die I will weep. Because there is something deeper than betrayal And it is devotion.