In her eyes by Crystal Lim

In her eyes

Words by Crystal Lim / Illustration by Dana Jepsen

When I was younger, I used to be scared that my mum would leave me. I remembered always wanting to follow her around the house when I was little, clinging to her whenever I had the chance to. She would get fed up sometimes, as you do with a four-year-old keeping a beady eye on you with every step you take. I knew then that this fear hadn’t come out of nowhere.

I feared that my mum secretly hated her life and wanted to leave at every opportunity that she had. That she was unhappy with how everything turned out. I tried to stop these thoughts, but most of the time they were still there. Especially during those after school hours when I dreaded every second when she wasn’t there. The scenarios would just pop up in my head of her leaving the workplace and deciding to disappear for all of eternity when she didn’t come on time to pick me up. My mother, like most people, had dreams.

She always told me how she wanted to be a teacher, and how she used to pretend to teach her younger siblings but ended up getting frustrated when they didn’t follow along. She always smiled looking back at that. I would smile with her, but then I would get sad, sad that she never got what she wanted in the end; sad that she had to look after her parents which stopped her from going to school. She’s still here, she never left us.

For some reason, I wonder how and why she stayed because sometimes there’s a look in her eyes in which I can see the life that she never had. The travels she would have gone. The dream university course that she wanted to attend. A life where she lived in every moment, a life where she didn’t have us. Sometimes I wish she didn’t, so she wouldn’t have to stress over my sister’s hospital bills, cry over why her eldest daughter doesn’t visit us anymore, or worry over why I’m so quiet all the time.

I looked back often as if she had mistreated us, but it’s the complete opposite. Mum says that she loved us all equally and wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe I read it all wrong, maybe she didn’t mind how her life turned out. Only now am I coming to terms that she’s not going to leave us now. Most likely anyway.

I never asked how my sisters felt.They were all too busy; one was busy being sick; the other was busy looking after herself because mum got too caught up with me and my other sister. Perhaps they felt the same or shared a similar notion. Or maybe they didn’t care at all.

She’s sitting with me now, over at the couch staring closely at her stitchwork while the TV news blares in the background. Even though she’s here, it felt like every second that I had with her was never enough. That one day out of the blue, she will be gone. Not because she wants to, but because she’s getting older. It’s like I spent all of my time worrying about her when I was younger and now I don’t know how to actually be with her.

If I hadn’t worried so much when I was younger, maybe things would have turned out differently. I could see that little girl now, reading a book on the fl oor mat as she looked up now and then at her mum to make sure she’s still there. Maybe she needed someone to reassure her that mum was never going to leave. That she will always be there.

But nobody ever did. She’ll be sitting on the ground, reading her book, getting constantly distracted by intrusive thoughts that pervade her constant worrying state of mind. She’ll be left pondering for the next couple of years why she felt like this and whether it’ll ever go away. In the mirror, I could see it in her eyes that those thoughts still lingered there.