Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Write something AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL (10/02/14)
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TITLE: Queen of Everything | Previous Challenge Entry
By Anita van der Elst
10/08/14 -
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There I found my reward, by pouring my heart out line after line in my journal, in burrowing into an engrossing novel, or as the creator of fairytale characters. Lost in my fantasies, how my heart sank when my bedroom door would fly open revealing Mom’s glare.
“Who do you think you are—the Queen of Sheba? All you do is sit there and read, or scribble all day long. What good is that?” she’d yell. Sometimes she changed the label to Queen of England or Queen for a Day. I loved my mother and down deep I knew she loved me so I it was hard to understand where this disdain came from. I’d see her sit down and read books occasionally. So why did her daughter’s enjoyment of reading and writing have no value in her eyes? Well, it did not stop me. It’s possible it slowed me down some, gave me years of self-doubting, but my imagination never ceased being engaged.
Mom mellowed over the years and we had enjoyable moments. But fast forward a few decades and her moods switched over to the grumbling side again. We now lived 1300 miles away from each other. Every phone conversation included criticisms of this person and that situation. Then about a year after my father’s death, Mom, at age 79, flew the distance to visit my husband and me for three weeks. Refusing to make the trip alone, she paid for a ticket for my sister to accompany her. My sister could only stay for a few days, so not only did Mom pay for my sister’s round-trip flight she purchased a round-trip ticket for me, and thus I became her companion for the return trip.
Our visit challenged me emotionally and mentally. Mom’s increasing cantankerousness and negativity wore like a shoe a half size too small. Mostly I handled it with firmness (“I’m going to my room now, Mom, and I’ll be back out in one hour.”), an energetic employment of my sense of humor (“Yes, I understand your concern about your diabetes, Mom, but did you really mean it when you said, ‘What if I wake up dead in the morning?’ You wake up, you’re obviously not dead. Dead, you won’t wake up.”), and a mixing of the two (“Mom, I’m closing your bathroom door. I know you don’t like closed doors but your business in there is none of mine.”).
Mom’s sense of humor doesn’t exactly line up with mine. Such was the case, as I flew with her back to her home, when at a large airport a connecting flight confronted us.
With Mom’s slow pace and sketchy balance, if we walked to the necessary gate, we might arrive too late. I asked a flight attendant at the gate where we had disembarked about transportation to get us there more quickly. She called for a courtesy cart. Besides the driver, there was room on the cart for four or five people. Mom and I were the only passengers this time and it felt like a luxury, a luxury for—dare I say it—royalty.
Our driver expertly swerved through an airport crowded with travelers. As we rode along I turned to my mother. “This is our chance, Mom,” I said. “We can pretend we’re queens waving to our subjects. Wave, Mom, wave at the people. Watch me—because now…I am the Queen of Everything.” And raising my arm with elbow bent elegantly, I swiveled my hand in that regal gesture at everyone we passed by.
Mom’s facial expression mirrored the one I’d seen framed by my bedroom door those many years ago. I can assure you she was not amused, but I…well, I had a marvelous time. I thought it a most fitting reward for those Saturday afternoon interruptions of my well-earned recreation of choice.
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I was able to feel the dynamics and sense the internal conflicts that often resulted in overt moments.
Great job and congratulations for honoring your mom irrespective of the relationship.
Thank you for sharing.
God bless~