In Debra Halaand's short story "Mother's Love", one of the most difficult types of relationships between family members is explored: the relationship between an abusive parent and a child victim. "Mother's Love" highlights the complicated yet intense bond shared between mother and daughter, emphasizing that love can still be endured despite years of abuse.
The story juxtaposes memories of the narrator's strong-willed, hardened mother with the current reality of her mother withering away in a hospital bed. The narrator fondly reminisces over her child and the moments with her mother that she holds the closest to her heart. While the narrator does not deny her mother's abusive nature, she adamantly claims, "as I see her lying there, small and helpless, I wish we could go back... I'd move into this hospital if I could... I love my mother" (25). The narrator's mother was unable to express love for her family through tenderness and affection as most mothers do - instead, she showed love through her cooking. The narrator recalls her mother's food, the meticulous way she would prepare piki bread and chile stew, but more than anything, she recalls the way the food made her feel. She professes, "my mom's cooking was so dear to me. When I met... the man who was to be my husband... I realized that I loved him when he made me feel the way my mom's cooking did" (26). |
The dichotomy between the narrator's mother "then" and "now" has an interesting effect on the reader, in which sympathy is attributed to an abusive mother who might otherwise be seen as the story's villain. The image of an angry woman who only saw her daughter's hair "as a gift as something to grab [her] by" is contrasted with the image of a woman with "thinned gray hair against paper-like skin", slowly dying beside the child she once abused (29-30).
The narrator's ability to find love for other mother despite enduring a difficult childhood highlights the strength of the bond between a mother and her child - despite hardships and mistakes, all is easily forgiven in the end. |