My mother is larger than life. Sometimes I worry that we are two big personalities fighting to be heard over one another. When we are together, she reads my tarot and asks me hard questions about the parts of myself I hide from the world.
My father is reserved and aloof. Sometimes I worry I will overtake his voice completely when I talk. When we are together, we take long drives and unravel the coil of things previously left unsaid.
They are good parents, but am I a good daughter?
I dedicate too much time to imagining my parents talking about me to other people. I wonder what they say, and what they really think.
When my mother is chatting with fellow moms about their children, how does she introduce me? Does she show them pictures of my graduation and describe the moment I walked across the stage? Does she tell them about the times I called her crying?
If my father is asked about his family by his new coworkers, what role do I play in his life? Am I the distant daughter getting her degree in Montreal? Am I still his babygirl, bright-eyed and insatiably curious about the world?
Do they leave out the messier parts? The 2 AM calls, the tears, the arguments, the money troubles? Do they lie about how much I call? The things I have gone through? The ways I have disappointed them?
My parents have separately told me they wonder the same things in reverse. What do I tell people when they ask about my family? Do I neglect certain memories to paint a prettier picture, or am I brutally honest about the ways they have hurt me? They think their worst days are reflected in my hardest moments. My parents know they have done things that begged forgiveness.
Parents hurt their children and children hurt their parents right back. I tell myself there’s no sense reliving the mistakes I made as recently as last month. I’ve spent a lifetime testing the boundaries of everyone around me, mother and father included. I broke the rules, however lax they were, and acted incredulous that they existed in the first place.
I know they do the same, constantly deliberating their roles as parents and where they could have been different. My parents understand the weight of past generations, but they donʼt see what I see. I know my parents did not have easy lives and Iʼm grateful they worked so hard to make mine easier than they ever got to have. I see the cycles they broke, the boundaries they set, the unlearning they did. I know what my parents have sacrificed and I know they have cried over what they have lost. Sometimes it feels like I’m too aware of these sacrifices. They haunt me. Ghosts lurk in the hallways of my childhood home but I don’t know their names. My parents gave me not just life, but a good one. What did I ever do in return?
Although my parents rarely interact, they seem to have come to a consensus on who I am. I’m told I’m hard-working, I’m strong, I’m someone to be proud of. It’s not about what they say, it’s me. I live in constant deliberation on whether or not I am a good daughter, despite never being able to articulate what a “good daughter” would look like. Sometimes it goes even further; with everything they did for me and everything they sacrificed, could it really be true that I was their daughter? This is despite the fact I am the spitting image of my mother at my age.
I will never stop trying to be a good daughter. Not out of guilt, but love.
There are so many things I never say because I don’t know how to start. Would my voice come out a whisper, giving back the space I demanded so frequently as a child, or would it be strong, a reminder of the independent woman they raised me to be? There are times I explore new languages, seeking the words that English seems to lack to describe our relationship. In the absence of such a voice, I write. I deliberate each special occasion on the right sequence of words to capture my gratitude and awe, then scratch a meaningful but ineffective version to send through the mail. Even now, I am scrutinizing each sentence I write.
Sometimes, though, the simplest statements can answer the hardest questions.
When I graduated from University, my parents briefly reunited to join my friends and me at a celebratory dinner. Walking fast, I was so determined to get to our reservation on time I nearly missed the fact that my parents were deep in conversation behind me. Taking no notice that I was listening now, they continued to discuss how proud they were of me and how relieved they were that they had clearly done something in raising me right.
“We did a pretty great job didn’t we?” “Yes, we did.”
Although to them it seemed to be a natural conclusion from 23 years of dedication and unconditional love to me it was revolutionary. They were proud of not only what I had done, but who I had become. I know now they have built a life for me where I can be whatever I want to be, and so I choose to be a good daughter.
My mother and I have a ritual; she will envelop me in a hug and say “thank you for choosing me to be your mom,” I squeeze back hard enough to undo every mistake I’ve ever made and say “thank you for letting me be your daughter.”
My father and I have a ritual; as I say goodbye again I apologize for living so far away, he says “I just miss you” and I cry once the train leaves the station.
I will never stop trying to be a good daughter. Not out of guilt, but love. They deserve nothing less.
Simone Brown 