The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

When I was little, I remember walking into my mum’s room very quietly so she could not hear, and watching her cry.

She would cry for hours on end, and had perfected the heartbreaking art of silent tears.

I never understood how I could make her happy then, I used to save all the money she gave me for dinners at school and instead of buying food with it, I would wait until I had enough and then buy her the flowers from the stall down the road. This to me at such a young age was a mission, but one that I was convinced would make her happier or at least dry the tears.

Opening her bedroom door, I placed them on the bed next to her as she wept into the linen.

I waited for her to stop and look and for the look of relief and a smile to come to her face. I wanted to save her so badly.

But the tears never stopped and she raised her head to look at the flowers and then cried harder than she had before.

I couldn’t help her, and no one could. a million things about her pain I did not understand.

Now I find myself, sobbing into my own linen that I have brought with me to the bathroom floor and bunched around my face to silence the tears.

There is no point in noise sounding the alarm of sadness when no one around you can fix it. The people you loved initiated it but then you have taken on a form of torment only seen before in the people you learnt how to cry from.

I suddenly understand my mother’s anguish. She was not crying for things she had lost, or moments past. She was crying at the fact that she could never be the person they wanted.

She would never match the person that had stolen their thoughts, and tugged at their hearts.

Even though they promise that they have never even wondered what the touch of their skin would feel like.. You know yourself it is a lie and it can’t be fixed.

I cry for the way I look, and I sob for the way it isn’t how she looks.

I try to make the best of what I was given but it will never match up to the woman she is.

I will myself to accept who I am and believe the things he says to me… and all the while I am trying to silence the voices in my head that tell me to give up.

The thing is, as dramatic as it sounds… My mum didn’t give up.. she led her life and since those days where she cried, I have never seen her smile with her whole heart.

I just don’t know if I can live that way.. so im wondering what the point is.