Lubi Barre
Kale
My own mother arrives in five days. I hear myself prepping my son that his Ayeeyo will be coming to visit. I animate my voice to sound it appealing and fun, a woman he has only met once at eight months old. He associates her with the only Somali word he knows, “kale”, motioning his hands to come. He doesn't have birthday cards that he can run his fingers over and hold tightly on his way to kindergarten. There are no presents like the stuffed rabbit he sleeps with in his bed or drags by the neck as he races down the street. He doesn't look at paintings of flowers and theatrically sneeze, one hand covering his tiny mouth. Those are things given and learned from a woman he calls Groß Mama, a grandmother that he is well acquainted with.
My own mother will come to visit and stay for only four days. I don't realize that this is a short time until I see the reactions from my friends faces, their own mothers having been by their side, taking care of them and their babies for weeks after birth.
The synapses of emotions and expectations have been rewired, rerouted into a place where pain cannot be reached directly. The loss manifests itself in other ways, my needs demanded from a partner that cannot, should not, provide them.
My own mother will also sleep else where, not on bed sheets that have been washed by my sleepless hands. Her bare feet will not walk down my hallway, will not feel the Persian rugs I brought with me from Boston. She will miss hearing her daughter put her grandsons to bed, the steady breathing of babies. My oldest will not get the opportunity to knock on her door, entering shyly the first morning and then gradually becoming more bold until he goes to her before he comes to my bed. No, he has his other grandmother for that.
My own mother will come to visit and she will make my heart race at the smell of her, her elegance, her beauty synonymous to the Chanel perfume she wears, ever lasting and classic. She will be perfectly elusive, a rare treat for my sons, an exotic creature that cannot give warmth, only a glimpse for the imagination.
My mother will arrive in five days and I try not to think too deeply. My hands do what I cannot show easily, baking cakes in the late night and prepping for a warm dinner for her arrival. I prepare plans to cover her culinary and cultural tastes, set appointments for doctors and dressmakers, do my very best. I make believe it all counts, careful to steer clear of the little me that knows better.
I have five days and each day I clap my hands for my boys, laugh loudly saying “Ayeeyo is coming to visit!”, hoping the happy display keeps my heavy history buried.