Written by Stuart Gough
It would be false
to call us close
in the way stories
often sculpt
mothers and children—
our bond was quieter,
less shaped by tenderness
than by time.
But the true breakthrough
was learning to see her
not as Mother,
but as woman—
a being before me,
beyond me,
carrying her name
long before I had one.
She wore the weight
of generational bruises,
poverty clawing at her youth,
and yet,
she did not break.
She learned survival
like it was breath—
without poetry,
without pause.
Still,
she kept something soft—
a shard of belief
in goodness,
even when goodness
was a luxury.
She gave,
forgave,
held space
for the flawed
and the flailing.
I used to laugh
at that kind of hope—
called it naïve,
a relic in the age
of sharp tongues
and digital gods.
But now,
I mourn it.
Because she was right:
we are not just
what breaks us.
We are also
what we choose
to preserve.
Text © Stuart Gough
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