The first time I heard you coo, I was sitting at the counter in my mama's kitchen. Your grandfather sent a video of your first feeding. Despite our expectations, we could not be present in the hospital room when you entered the world. I cried as I watched that video over and over again. I wanted to memorize your voice.
It has become my sole purpose each day-- to learn you... to know you better than I have known anything or anyone, to anticipate your needs, to translate each sound and gesture, to be the loving response. You and I are composing a new kind of poetry, and each day, in each moment, I am learning your syntax and the semantics of us.
I finally understand why I've struggled to put into words my relationship and feelings towards my own mother-- because Webster did not compose our lexicon. We did. My mama studied me before words confined our language. Before punctuation denoted each of my emotions, my mama knew... and she still does.
I am privileged to come from a lineage of extraordinary mothers. I witnessed the love of my Mamaw for my mama. She packaged it in jars of strawberry preserves at midnight. She expressed it in the smell of my mom's favorite gravy cooking long before dawn announced the coming day. She tenderly squeezed it into the palm of my mama's hand when dementia stole her words. Even then, their language remained.
My mama passed this language on to me... in shared tears, warm embraces, long walks, and comfort foods prepared for any and every occasion. It's in the standing invitation to climb into her bed with no explanation or excuse needed. Sometimes you just need proximity to the only one who speaks the silent language of your soul.
My mama learned my language, as I am learning yours, Sweet Esperanza.
Yours is an ethereal language that resurrects a joy that I thought had died inside me.
Yours is the loveliest language of all, and to me, it always will be.
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