A Card for My Mother

– Thinking about the one who used to cook for me

My mother’s absence
was not only sadness.
It was also a quiet kind of anger.

I didn’t say it.
I didn’t show it.
But I felt it
in the way a child knows something is missing.

That was my silent anger.

I thought about the meals she used to cook—
the way she tied her hair in the kitchen—
and during art time,
when we were supposed to make cards for Mother’s Day,
I quietly left the room.

Everyone else was folding paper,
drawing hearts and flowers,
writing “thank you” in big, happy letters.
I said nothing.
I just walked out.

Because I once had a mother.
Because she used to be there.
Because her absence filled the whole room.

I never made that card.