I Still Want My Mother to Say “You’re Doing Well”

Dear Delyara, I hate how much power that sentence still has. I could get a compliment from anyone else and appreciate it, smile, say thank you, move on. But if it came from my mother in the right voice, I know it would reach some old dry place in me so quickly I might cry before I even got off the phone. That’s embarrassing at my age. It’s also real. Because what children don’t get clearly, they keep trying to earn long after everyone agrees they are adults. I still want her softness. I still want her to look at my tired face and say, “You’re carrying a lot, and you’re doing well.” She says other things. Helpful things, practical things, critical things disguised as helpful things. I still wait for the sentence she doesn’t know how to give.