How Do I Compensate For Your Loss?

By Mariyam Junaid

“If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress.”

there is an anonymity to a mother’s pain that only her daughter understands, perhaps that is why she identifies with it.

in my girlhood i learnt that my mother’s love was greater than her grief. a summer in my hometown, two house helpers in the kitchen, their hands busy with dirty dishes, my own with brewing coffee

they tell me of the years my mother lost in that house. “this family took away a lot from her,” they said. their stories were not rich in detail and nor were they embroidered with incident. they were stark and factual. “the daughters of this house who dote on her now once filled your mother’s days with an immense sorrow.”

winter of the same year brought one of the daughters to our home. months later when once again mother sacrificed everything only for contempt in return, another househelper met me in the kitchen. her hands were quick on the stove as she told me tales of my mother’s patience.

every story ended with insistence - learn from her, she is testimony of everything it takes to be a woman in a man’s world.

Guilt is the haunches i sat on, Sacrifice the ground beneath it.

they do not know that i have watched from the sidelines all my life. even as my mother bent over backwards in service, she’d smile softly. i wish for you all the riches in the world. only comfort to keep you company. never should you have to live alongside the agony that i do. i recognised that as her silent plea, the price for her penance. the one desire she kept safe between her teeth.and yet - most days, she raised me on the principle of compromise.

i could no longer live under the burden of her suffering as a canopy, so i synonymized womanhood with a hecatomb. I spent too many years feeling like a byproduct of obligation, so i learnt to lick her approval off plates and knives alike, satiating an incessant, vicious hunger. i was born with her grief in one hand and her rage in another, so i learnt to apologize for being a storm cloud of a daughter instead of the flowers she deserved.

Guilt is a leash around my neck, Sacrifice the chain that pulls it.

• motherhood and daughterhood intertwined is a creature with claws.

By Mariyam Junaid