Not Every Love is Red

I grew up in a Baptist household, but we weren’t religious until grandma moved in.

Three generations of women, so very different from one another, living under the same roof. Grandma was an autonomous person, but the death of my grandfather–to whom she’d sublimated her whole life–made her realize she’d never been alone.

“A woman is as strong as the man she’s with,” she’d said one time after I’d introduced her to my boyfriend. “Choose wisely, Becka.”

Mom was the complete opposite of her. She’d renounced to every belief she'd been taught as a little girl. Sometimes she still struggles to let go of the shackles she wore for so long, but it’s a work in progress, she says.

Nothing prepared me for the first time I saw my mother cried. God, it broke my heart. I remember her trying to stifle her sobs, thinking I couldn’t hear her. Despite all of it, she wore a masked face.

I didn’t know what to do.

Sometime during my sophomore year of college, my mom came out to me. The confession was so liberating. Mainly sparked by Barefoot wine and the movie Blue is the Warmest Color, it brought us closer than ever before. I remember hugging her all night until she cried herself to sleep.

Though, this time she was crying out of many things–joy, relief, love. Anything, but pain.

Even though my mom has stopped crying, I know she is afraid of what grandma would say. I think my mom doesn’t want grandma to leave this world without knowing. Because as much as she sublimated her life to grandpa, my mother has done the same thing to her.

I guess love can be as harmful as hate sometimes. At least, if we never learned what love truly is.

My grandma constantly tells me that I’m young, inexperienced, and naive. But I know something she doesn’t.

Not every love is red.

I also know that a woman is as strong as she decides to be. And us, women, will always choose strength, grandma.