LETTERS

It had been more than a year since Aisha’s mother had passed away. Her father had walked out on them when she was five, and so her entire childhood had revolved around her mother, a woman she had believed to be invincible, who, in the face of cancer, had succumbed to her wounds. Not that Aisha was a child now; she was a twenty-seven-year-old writer, who worked double jobs to sustain a living while she racked her brain to produce work worthy of publishing. For twelve months, she had managed the rent of a two-bedroom house in the bustling metropolitan of Sycra, and it had become abundantly clear to her that she would need to move to a smaller, less expensive place. 

She had found the perfect little place but had been delaying moving out. She knew she would have to clear out her mother’s room, her clothes, and belongings, and she was afraid to do it. She packed everything else, first. She had to sell off much of the furniture, because it would never fit in her new flat. When all that was left in the house were boxes, she pushed herself to go to her mother’s room. It had been left untouched, and dust had collected on all surfaces. She glanced around, and felt strangely unwelcome. The four walls and what lay within were uninviting without their resident. Steeling herself, she started emptying out the clothes kept in the iron almirah. She noticed the small safe at the corner of the centre shelf, and for a moment wondered if there was anything inside. There was no key around, and it did not have any passcode. She twisted its knob and with a click, it opened. Inside, was a folder. She had never seen it before. She took it out and looked at it, puzzled. Sitting down on the floor, she opened it.

There were numerous folded sheets of paper inside, different sizes, some older than others, yellowed at the edges or completely, some ruled and others not. Curious, she took the entire stack out, and kept it beside her. She picked up the first sheet and opened it.

Dear Mom

I love you very, very much.

Love

Aisha

A sad smile spread across her face. The handwriting was childlike. She must have written it when she was six or seven. Setting it down, she picked up the next. It was an essay on, ‘My Mother’. Young Aisha had talked about her mother’s qualities, her cooking skills, her qualifications, her favourite subject. It was so innocently penned down, without any sarcasm or slapstick humour, that it made her heart ache. Blinking away tears, she opened another. It said, very plainly, ‘I love you, Mom.’ Reading it made Aisha feel a little uneasy. She went through the rest of the papers and her uneasiness grew. There were more than a hundred letters, and they were only depictions of love towards her mother. There were apologies followed by an ‘I Love You’, or a random drawing of a flower with an ‘I Heart You’.

She could not understand why she felt so uncomfortable. If anything, this should have made her feel better. She had expressed what she felt to her mother freely, and her mother had passed away knowing that her daughter loved her. Then why did she have a sinking feeling?

She leaned against the fall, her arms folded around her knees, as she tried to analyse her own feelings. When it dawned on her, she felt her throat tighten. The letters felt wrong, because they emitted a sense of desperation. A desperation to tell the mother that the child felt love, a desperation to remind her every day, a desperation to make sure the mother remembered. She picked up a letter she had kept aside, and read it again:

Dear Mom

I love you very, very much. I know that yesterday, I told you that I don’t. I am very sorry; I did not mean it. I was angry and I just said it. I really love you a lot.

From

Aisha

She might not know many six-year-olds, but she knew that they did not think over their actions so much as to apologise for them so fervently. Suddenly, she knew why. She was reminded of all the emotions her younger self had felt while writing these letters. Fear. Her father had left them, and she was terrified her mother would too. This was why she wanted to tell her, every chance she got, that she loved her. That perhaps this would make her worthy of not being abandoned yet again. She remembered how she used to look under the door, while her mother was out shopping for essentials, waiting for her to come back, worried that she won’t; how she used to hug her every time she returned and how she thanked God, when her mother was not looking.

How had she forgotten about these letters? When had she stopped fearing? Did her mother know this when she kept all the letters she had received, safe? Aisha knew she was crying. All she wanted was to hug young Aisha, and tell her it would be okay, that she was worth being loved. She clutched the letters close to her, shedding tears for the little girl who was afraid of being left.