_{Mom and us, her three eldest daughters}

My mom loves me

I call her mom, mother, dear, old or simply Eloina, that is her name, according to what I am talking to her and who is around us, but I always do it with affection and respect. Our trust, between mother and daughter, allows us to call each other as we please, without feeling that there is disrespect.

I must begin by saying that my mother had a difficult childhood and adolescence, full of mistreatment and loneliness. She fell in love at a very young age with my father, her only love in the world, whom she had to watch die almost 9 years ago. Her mother, my grandmother, who abandoned her and did not want to know her because she had married my father, had to take care of her when she was ill and she also saw her die 3 years ago and finally, months ago she saw her last grandchild, my nephew, 18 years old, die. In other words, adulthood has not been easy either.

_{Mom and dad}

Maybe that's why my mom is the way she is. So surly, so little given to caresses, cuddles and shows of affection. She was always the strong one, the one with the definitive word, the hard one, the one with the severe punishment. However, Mom is very sentimental: she breaks easily, as if under that armor, that hard layer, there was a little girl with a lot of fear.

Not everything is hardness. My mother's heart is a big house where everyone lives, is what I tell her sometimes. She has her ways of showing affection, affection, interest; her language of love is in taking care of others, feeding them, keeping them company, protecting them. And that, perhaps, also has to do with old traumas: because she needs, at 71 years old, to be doing things, to be active, to be useful.

_{My mother and her only two male grandchildren}

I have had many unique moments with my mother, but perhaps the one I remember most was the first time I fell in love. My mother and I have always had a relationship of trust: I think there are few things I have experienced that my mother doesn't know about. That's why, when I was 22 years old, after a trip in which I had met my first love, my mom asked me, immediately she saw me, as if something strange she could see in my face:

_What's wrong with you, what's wrong with you?

"Nothing,” I told her because I didn't know what I was feeling.

My mother insisted so much that I finally told her:

I think I fell in love, I said hesitantly and cried feeling like the stupidest person in the world.

I, who had dodged all Cupid's arrows with childish pride, had finally been hit by one of his arrows and in a distant city. My mother listened to me and pampered me as an animal pampers its young.

_{The family}

A month later, when that boy came to my city and we became sweethearts, I witnessed one of the most awkward moments I had experienced up to that moment. My mother, upon finding out that we had become boyfriend and girlfriend, asked to talk to him and in front of me, my mother gave him a speech that I will never forget. Hahahaha. She told him what a good daughter I was, that I had never fallen in love before, that I was studying, that I had goals and dreams, that whoever hurt me, hurt her, that my father treated me like a princess, that I was the apple of his eye, that I was the pearl in the crown. Hahahahaha .

At that time, I remember, I looked like Christmas lights: I turned green, white and red with grief. I didn't understand why my mother had to say all those things. However, with time I have learned to value that speech, to appreciate it. Never before, ever, had I heard how valuable I was to her and to my family. It's not that I didn't know. I did. But it's one thing to be told and to tell someone else.

_{Mom getting kissed by me}

As I write this, I hear that on the porch of the house, my mother scolds a stray dog, Negrin, who comes to the house because my mother gives him food. sunMom scolds him, talks to him, because he didn't come yesterday, Sunday. As I write I smile, because that's how my mother is. On the one hand stern, quarrelsome, but on the other hand concerned for those she loves.

The images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Deepl

This is my participation this week for our great friend @ericvancewalton's initiative: Memoir monday. If you want to participate, here's the link to the invitation post

Memoir Monday: What is one of your favorite memories of your mother?

My mom loves me

The images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Deepl

This is my participation this week for our great friend @ericvancewalton's initiative: Memoir monday. If you want to participate, here's the link to the invitation post

Thank you for reading and commenting. Until a future reading, friends