Written piece
I get jealous
Christabel Namayanja
Uganda
About this piece
This is a poem I wrote in 2021, the year of my mother's death as an account/ documentation of my feelings at the time. I hope to write more about her and about getting to experience the person that she was. This poem is a call to people to give their mothers love while they can.
I get jealous.
Of people who get to watch their mothers grow old
And ask them questions about their youth
like what they had to give up in order to become mothers
I keep thinking about lost conversations that I will never have with my mother.
I keep wondering about what she liked when she was my age.
How did she know my father was the man she would marry?
How do you know?
I would ask her if she kept herself,
like they told us to growing up,
for her husband.
or if she was ever in a love triangle
and what she would have done with her life if I were not here.
I would have wanted to be her friend
and to really understand how she felt about things
to know why she did things the way she did.
I get jealous of people who get to watch their mothers grow old
I get jealous.