Beholder

May 31st, 2024

Today is my mom’s birthday. There are so many beautiful photos of her and this is one of them.

I was young when she woke up one day and half of her face was unresponsive; it was during or shortly after she was pregnant with one of my youngest sisters.

For her, the hardest part wasn’t getting stared at in public. As a family that talked with our hands, we were used to being the center of unwanted attention in every public space, from McDonald’s to the waiting room. I know very well the feeling of zoo animals in cages.

No, the worst part was the fear she could see in children’s eyes when they saw her.

I’m not a monster, she told me, like I didn’t already know that she was an angel. Why can’t they see who I really am?

We’ve spent a lot of time lately making monsters out of humans.

Piling on celebrities, shitting on people we disagree with, typing deranged comments, making hate our whole personalities, promoting stereotypes, generalizing groups, profiling individials; refusing to recognize that nobody actually fits in a box, and unwilling to do the work of learning who the people we meet really are.

There’s a strange irony that we are witness to actual atrocities being committed across the globe, but even then I offer this: those, too, are not monsters, but humans committing monstrous acts.

So for my mom’s birthday (she would have been 62 today if she hadn’t fluttered off), I ask of you just one simple thing: consider the people of this world, all of them, as people, just like you.

Not monsters, not even strangers, but fellows, and potential allies and friends and family. People you might even hug. I know I always need a hug.

I was born on the first, she was born on the last, and on the second Sunday we celebrate her.

I miss you, mama.

Thank you for reminding me that I’m not an actual monster; despite my sometimes monstrous existence, and my continual insistence to the contrary.