My mama always said,
“I will do anything to protect my children,”
And that night, she kept her promise to the end,
And her words echoed loudly and repeatedly in my mind,
As I watched her lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
It was a night full of terror, chaos, and dismay,
It was a night that is still etched deep in my mind,
A night that wells tears in my eyes even to date,
A night of scraping and scarring,
And as the full moon outside shone brightly to its glory,
Darkness was creeping its way into our home.
My father was screaming his heart out,
As he stood agile in the sitting room,
Knife in hand, that was still wet and drenched in mama’s blood,
It was dripping all over, tainting both the carpet and our souls.
My sister was sat frozen on the floor,
Hands to her ears,
Her face wet, ashen, and stripped of color,
And her frail body cold to the touch,
As I sat hugging her from behind,
Wishing the ground would open up and swallow us all.
I wished for a miracle,
I wished that my mother would survive,
That somehow I would one day hear “grandma”
As my kids ran around mama in the garden,
While picking green apples – her favorite,
That somehow we would walk on the streets of Milan together,
Her dream destination,
That I would watch as she danced around trying on dresses and shoes,
She was in love with Versace,
Or as her face lit up when she would listen to opera in La Scala,
She said it healed her soul,
But if hopes and wishes were wings, the destitute would soar.
Till today, as I sit on her stone on a hill,
Amid the grass and the meadow flowers,
My heart aches, my body remembers and shudders, and my head screams,
As I recall that I could do nothing about that night.
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