A Complex Maternal Relationship

Take a moment to reflect on someone you currently find challenging or have conflicted feelings toward. Write about your relationship with this person—what emotions or reactions do they trigger in you?

My mother is a woman of incredible strength and resilience, a mother to three girls and the one who gave me life. Her fierce character has always inspired me to stand tall and remain true to my values. She taught me the importance of having firm morals and the courage to defend myself and what I believe in. In 2010, she endured the heartbreaking loss of her firstborn, my oldest sister, who passed away at the age of 17. Her grief was profound, and the pain of that loss was shared by all who loved her. In her youth, her father betrayed their trust, and her mother missed the opportunity to protect her. Balancing the resilience shaped by betrayal, emotional neglect, and abandonment is no easy feat. Perhaps it explains her need for control—when she once felt powerless in her childhood. "Forgive her," my heart quietly pleads, I yearn for understanding, For compassion to arise, From the depths of my heart, Where love quietly lies.

But it’s smothered, concealed, By the weight of her gaze, Her projections like shadows, Dimming the light they raise.

I feel it, deep within— A love that longs to breathe, Yet suffocated, it lingers, Too burdened to leave.

Evonne By: Amaya Hinkle…

…I want to understand the fear that shaped her self-expression—raising three daughters, losing a spouse, remarrying, losing a child, and grieving the loss of a mother all while battling mental health struggles and, at the time, lacking the resources to turn her wounds into strength. Through it all, she was a wife who didn’t fit traditional expectations, leaving her with little space for the deep self-reflection needed to heal from the trauma that continued to cast a shadow over her everyday life. By no means weak, yet challenged in every way possible. She is me. I am her. Navigating an agenda of right and wrong through the many trials of life. It's not fair of me to place ownership of her flaws on her, driven by frustration over the wounds her actions have caused in me. My anger cannot fix her, nor will my pleading dismiss her. How will I spend my time—wrestling with the uncertainty of life? Chasing explanations that were never meant to be found? Forcing my reflection to be a one-sided version of who I am? Or will I learn to sit with the uncertainty, letting the questions remain unanswered, just as she did? Will I accept that some parts of me, like some parts of her, were never meant to fit into a neat narrative, and that true growth lies not in finding the answers, but in embracing the unknown? Maybe true reflection isn’t about fixing what I can't understand, but accepting those parts as they are—unfinished, unpolished, still evolving. Will I use this struggle, this very thing that was meant to break me, as a catapult for transformation? And, like her, use my story as a foundation for others who need a reason to rise, to make a difference in their own lives?