if my mother never left India,
maybe I’d see her talk a little louder,
smile a bit brighter,
stand a bit taller.
maybe if she never made the journey to new york,
then michigan,
then south carolina,
maybe if she didn’t trade one passport for another,
trade the orange, white and green
for red, white and blue,
she wouldn’t have had to hear how “good her english is”
wouldn’t be reminiscing in a voice so thick with grief and exhaustion.
if my mother never left,
maybe it would have saved her the heartache of experiencing motherhood
in a country where she knew no one.
no mother, no father, no brother,
just her.
maybe she wouldn’t have had to endure other mothers othering her.
if my mother never left,
she wouldn’t have had to deal with her child
being ashamed of her language or her food,
at the expense of other children at school.
she wouldn’t have had to deal with the constant law changes,
the overturnings, the codifications, the times changing
so rapidly in ways she didn’t expect or want.
it’s not what she came here for.
she wouldn’t have had to deal with dreadfully lonely nights,
in a house almost 8000 miles from her childhood.
in a town almost 8000 miles from her adolescence,
almost 8000 miles from her family,
her life,
her aspirations.
if my mother never left,
i can’t say whether or not she would have gotten more years with her mother,
whether or not she would have still questioned everything,
whether or not she would have felt peace for more than just a moment.
and
if my mother never left,
it would mean i wouldn’t be here.
but i imagine the bags under her eyes turning into bright smile lines,
and i imagine her beaming laugh swirling around a cup of chai,
surrounded by people she knows and loves,
in the midst of mango season and humidity,
and it is abundantly clear that my absence
would have been worth her happiness.
