It started with a death in the family.

On that Friday walking home after school, I possessed the feeling that occupies everyone as winter makes its glorious transition into spring. The concoction of sweet scents and warm, damp air passing through my lungs was reawakening every fiber in my body as I strolled down the road toward my house. Every few steps, when the energy bubbling up in my stomach became too intense bear, I would make a quick scan up and down the street for possible onlookers before leaping into the air and twirling like a small girl. By the time I reached the edge of my driveway, I feared that my voice might even break out into song.
With the door clanging behind me, I stepped into the entryway and carelessly flicked off my shoes, sunshine still lingering in my every movement. However, as my eyes shifted toward the living room, the atmosphere transformed. Air that was just recently mild and refreshing became oppressively hot. Flowers that had once scented of clean fragrance began to fill my nose with a fetid stench. The gentle, mellifluous voices of the robins cooing outside were drowned out by the gaping silence that engulfed the room. You often hear of a mother’s deep-seeded need to care for and soothe her child. Yet as for the concept of a child’s inner duty to console his or her mother, it had never really crossed my mind until that day. The urgent desperation to drain the tears welling up behind my mother’s pale, gray eyes overwhelmed all my other senses. In that moment, I would have traded the world just to see her smile.
My gaze passed beseechingly toward my dad, who sat on the couch with my mother’s flaccid limbs ensconced in his arms. They sat me down and gave me a winding explanation of what had happened. However, between the sight of their deplorable expressions and the heartbreak that hung on their every word, only one thing stuck. Unfortunately, for the coming weeks, that one thing would become interminably embedded in my mind. It wouldn’t matter what I did, or where I went, my grandfather was dead. I would never see him again.
The days that followed felt as if my life were a movie, and my 4-year-old cousins were controlling the remote. Time would fly by in fast forward. Suddenly I was faced with questions: What in the world is a wake? Is that dress too cheerful to wear? What could you possibly say that would comfort an inconsolable widow? All at once, those first four days were gone, and I was at the funeral. It was here that the fates hit the rewind button. Photo albums and reminiscences of my grandpa became our time machines, and my entire family was transported back to a life when he was was still around. For those few hours, we lived in the past because it was too painful to exist in the present.  Story after story, picture after picture, I learned more about the life of my grandfather while sitting in a funeral home than over my entire 13 years of him being alive.
However, throughout all of the dainty sniffles from my aunts and the booming sobs of my uncles, the only time that everything would appear to come to a complete stop was when I looked at my mom. It was almost as if someone were pausing the movie at the most sorrowful part of the film. Grief weighed down on her every movement until each depleting hug, tear, and even her every glance appeared as if it were sapping every ounce of energy she had. When the reception came at last, she was the only one of her siblings who abstained the open bar. In some ways, I think it might have been better for her spirits if she had gotten drunk.
When the funeral was over, there was no other option but to return to normal life. My two sisters, my dad and I made the transition without much of a struggle. If anything, we all appreciated falling back into our old routines, and relieving ourselves from the thick pall of sorrow that had been shadowing us for days. The change, however, was undoubtedly more difficult for my mother. Week after week, her eyes maintained that teary glisten. Often, I would catch her simply staring off in a daze, appearing to be thinking about nothing at all. She was stranded on this island of despair and no one, not even her own family, could reach her.
Several emotions began to swirl inside my mind. I should have felt sorry for my mother. I should have tried to help her. But each time she appeared to simply be plowing unhappily through the necessary motions of her life, I couldn’t help it. The pool of frustration and annoyance toward my mother would rise in the pit of my stomach. This was the woman who had always seemed to be able to fix any problem, conquer all adversities, and juggle life with an inexplicable ease. Yet here she was, falling subject to this anguish that I had no possible way of comprehending. What had happened to that steadfast, superhuman spirit that I had never not known to radiate from every one of my mother’s features? Why couldn’t I go back to an easier time when the only emotions she had ever truly revealed to me were utter joy and contentment?
On one of the first 80° and sunny afternoons in June, my mother and I sat hips adjacent, stretched out in the sand of the beach just down the road from my house. We chatted about a whole assortment of benign subjects: her day at work, the boy irritating me in math class, our goals for the summer. Then, in the midst of our discussions, my mom mentioned suddenly that this was the first day since March that she had gone without shedding a single tear.
It was in this way that the relationship between my mother and I had begun to transform. Feelings and emotions permeated our conversations. Suddenly she would speak her mind to me as if I were a dear friend, and not simply a daughter. Her frustrations, her weaknesses, her wants, and her strengths; with each passing day, another formerly concealed layer unveiled itself. Once the first barricade began to crumble, all the walls came crashing down.
My first instinct was to shy away. These new facets of her personality were things that I had never dreamed could exist in any mom, but certainly not mine. Growing up, my every assumption had always been that her life was perfect. Consequently, when this formerly untarnished image began to deteriorate, I revolted; shutting out any sincere conversation my mom would attempt to have. Over time, however, it became impossible to ignore her persistent struggle for a person she could confide in. With each time she sought me out for advice involving one of her every day predicaments, or with every flower that reminded her of her father, my obstinacy dissolved, bit-by-bit.
A less fairytale story of the life of my mom began to take shape. She divulged childhood anecdotes of her formerly wild, and slightly troubled brothers and sisters. I learned of past friends, neighbors, and teachers; people who have all had an enormous influence on her life, people whom I have never met. While each story revealed a new face, the starring roles were always same. A stern and loving mother, and of course, her hardworking, yet somewhat eccentric father. A pair that always fought when they were together but missed each other deeply when apart.
For the first time, I heard the uncensored experiences of high school and college; laughing until we cried over embarrassing first kisses, failures of job interviews, and awkward dates. The way my mother spoke of these events was unlike any voice I had heard her use before. Colorful, boisterous, and incredulously happy, with a trace of that Boston accent she had lost so many years ago. It was a voice that allowed me to transport back to a different time. A time where I could stand in the back of the chapel and admire as my future mom flows elegantly down the aisle toward her handsome groom. A time where I could hide in the corner of the hospital room, and see the joy sweep my mother’s face as her newborn daughter is placed in her arms for the first time. It was this new voice that granted me the power to envision a time before I even walked this Earth.
Just as anyone at her age, it also became apparent that my mother has regrets. I know now that it is one of her heart’s deepest desires to be closer with that family she left behind when making the decision to marry my dad, and move 3 hours to the home I live in today. However, when I ask her, as a daughter and as a dear friend, about this wish of hers, the response is simple. All she can say is that the beloved family that I have now heard so much about, no longer exists. The seven people that once lived under one roof, have dispersed, had their own families, and evolved over time. Evidently, she is not the same person that was in those stories from long ago. She has changed to become the mother that I know; the complex person we all love today.
Children often view their parents as I had always looked upon my mom: the indestructible anchors of our world that live for us, and us alone. This is partly true. On the other hand, as my life continues to zoom in fast-forward, sometimes all I wish is for a time to stop and rewind. I do this solely by taking a closer look at my mother. Since that fateful day in March, the flawless, unwavering, all-smiling person I had grown up knowing has slowly faded away. The woman who has replaced her, however, is someone that I not only look up to, but also a person I consider as a friend that I can trust. She is exquisite, she is kind, she is humble, but most of all, she is real.