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My Mother 's Resilience Inspired Me Day By Day

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Steam filled the dense cubicle apartment as my mother cooked, cleaned, showered and dressed. Despite her exhaustion and swollen ankles from hours spent on white floors of the hospital, she’d stand erect as a building, asking me to recite the words learned that day and review my homework. I knew daren’t turn on the TV during the weekday. When managing me and work became too much, she’d take me to work. During the commutes she whispered little words of wisdom, one was to “be still, listen and be vigilant”.
Soon I had two siblings, and I became the second-mother of the family. Our father was a lost cause, constantly belittling my mother my family and myself for no valid reason; he said to me “You’ll never succeed”. My mother’s resilience inspired me day by day. Susie, my loving aunt and reflection of my mother also stood by our family side and served as a protector against my father. She told me to keep going, to never look back, I am important, my grades matter, and that I was beautiful.
My mother and I were with my aunt during her grim diagnosis of ovarian cancer; we sat apprehensively for hours in the waiting room. We were please at the sound of remission, but for long. Her last bittersweet moments were spent with us in her apartment. We braided her hair and cooked her dinner. We wiped the salty mixture of sweat and tears off our faces. When she passed my mother sobbed and told me she had died of a broken heart. Her husband was akin to my father, so her strength

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