It seemed like another lifetime when I used to sit quietly and watch my mother paint, paint, and paint as she devoured the canvas in front of her with a palette of indefinite colours. I was fascinated by the swiftness with which she moved her brush and how tenderly she held it.
Vague memories enter my mind of her sitting on a stool, restricted to her tiny studio for days and days, refusing to relent to sleep until utter exhaustion coated her features. My mother was a force to be reckoned with, and my father still jokes about her tenacious personality and tells me how people used to be in utter awe of her beauty and vivaciousness.
Mama usually surrendered her time painting exquisite sunsets, my favourite one of them being a plaintive seascape. A dimming sun hidden behind the vastness of an endless ocean, countless azure waves frozen in perfect poise, growing in a descending pattern before the froth ceded to a bed of grainy sand. The golden and rosy hues of the sky blended into each other to form the colour of extinguishing hope, a portrait of fading happiness, the intermediate between light and darkness.
When Mama was in a light mood, I observed her throwing splashes of paint everywhere upon the canvas, as if she had no care for the world. Her aura became a laughing orange that spread warmth through the house as she flicked her brush here and there, a seamless movement of her hand guiding her across the paper, bereft of much thought.
I usually sat next to her with my own crayons, scribbling castles and dinosaurs and potted plants onto bits of crumpled paper with childish behaviour and a feeling that exceeded delight.
After developing my passion for art, I found myself in art competitions and exhibitions, while my mother soon found herself in a hospital bed. She became caught in a storm of raging disease; the only lighthouse near was one of eternal sleep. Every day before dusk fell, I visited her in her cold, prison-like medical room so she could shower me with blessings for
the days to come and revisit times of laughter. But it was never the same, could never be the same, from continuous beeping noises sounding from surrounding machines to a long drip attached to her arm.
Alas, she died, and my grandfather sat with me while my father cried his heart out inside her abandoned room. Both of us were dry-eyed with shock and utterly hollow inside. But the tears would come, and I awaited them with open arms. I was still sinking, a grief-stricken shipwreck, into a sea of uncontrollable, anguished feelings.
My grandfather sensed this and put his arm around me. He explained that Mama had already fulfilled her duty in the world: the tasks God gives us all to complete at birth, our respective parts to play in life.
I asked him with ridicule in my voice what that role was, and my grandfather told me about how Mama had already raised a beautiful daughter, guided her husband across countless rugged terrains, and had the most successful career. She had found her true self and had no scope for growth anymore. Thus, the divine had come to give her soul to another life and brighten more lost spirits, as she did for Papa and me. Perhaps she is gone, for this world does not deserve her anymore.
That night, I cried in front of the last painting she had made, one that contained my whole family. Mama, Papa, Grandpapa, and I have our hands linked together, gazing at the night sky unitedly at the constellations of stars twinkling above us. A painting of dreams lost and dreams reborn. That night of grief and sorrow, I raised my head from my arms and pledged to
avenge Mama’s spirit and prove that she had borne me for a reason.
It has been nine years since Mama passed away, nine years in which I gave my heart and soul to numerous art projects. But I feel I am losing myself with each stroke of my brush, losing myself each day my grandfather becomes sicker with age, and I get more and more afraid of what may happen again. I do not speak it aloud, for my father is dealing with enough.
Today is the day my family has awaited, a day that decides my future and my career, and my life. The day of a great art competition, a win that guarantees my entry into the best art college in the world. The college my mother failed to get in herself but aspired for me to be in since the day I was born.
There are merely two days left for the submission date, and so far, I have painted and tossed away nearly twenty canvases. No artwork shows the true essence of my persona, and the thought that remains a parasite in my head is if my mother wasn’t good enough, how in the world can I be?
I sigh and walk across the studio toward my abandoned paintings to see whether there is one which I can submit and be done with my indecisive trauma, for I am so, so exhausted.
Turning them over, I realize that there is one thing in common in all of them. All portray sadness, a sadness that has shrouded my mind ever since the day Mama died.
The reason is that I am incomplete. I am nothing, empty without my mother. A fallen leaf, separated from its tree and lost in the wind, unable to find its right destination. My art has become a vessel for my grief, a medium for my pain, and a voice to my unspoken thoughts.
I shove my face into my hands, sobbing away the stress I have collected over the past few weeks. I press my back against the wall and slide down slowly until I sit on my haunches, my knees pressed against my stomach and wrapped between my arms.
Suddenly, a memory whips into my brain as if called upon by the universe. I furrow my eyebrows, concentrating, trying to grab hold of the frayed ends of this rope that God has lent me.
My memory is surprisingly vivid, and I almost weep as a sharp image of my mother’s face appears before me. She holds my head between her hands gingerly and strokes my forehead, murmuring words of affection until I shift into a sleepy trance. She presses her head gently against my tiny nose, closing her eyes shut as if severing herself from the terrors of our harsh
world. This memory is from when I was still an infant. Perhaps it is a figment of my imagination or the power of my subconscious. Whatever it is, I breathe deeply, trying to soak in the feel of my mother in this brief moment of remembrance, aware of my mother’s aura wrapping around me, wrapping me inside her creamy scent of oil pastels and dark chocolate. I welcome her spirit to merge with mine, hug me tightly, and never let go.
As if guided by some invisible force, I suddenly stand up and perch atop my paint-splattered stool, picking up the paintbrush with renewed determination. My stomach fills with warmth, and my head is clear as day, the feeling one gets after taking a long, slurping sip of hot, rejuvenating coffee.
In a mere second, life has shown me its raw truth. I am replete with a firm sense of satisfaction and sudden, deep understanding. I have grieved too long for my past and future until I forgot the present and the now.
I pick up my brush and dip it into blue, orange, red and white ink. I paint until my wrist is tired, my mother’s energy surrounding me and my destiny awaiting. With a climactic flourish, I sit back finally and admire my painting. A wide grin spreads across my face— a happy reunion after long years spent apart.
My painting is not a sunset. There is no vast ocean or hopeless infinity. Instead, a vibrant flower bed blankets lush grass, surrounded by a circle of sage trees and bustling wildlife, keeping shelter beneath a soufflé of clouds. Pink and golden ribbons streak the sky, forming a sunrise— marking the start of something fresh, a new beginning.
I lean back from the painting, close my eyes, and breathe in the scent of a new dawn.