Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
All changes are hard at first,
messy in the middle
and gorgeous in the end
•••
•A R I A N N A •
"Hey mama," I coo answering my mother's facetime call, slamming the door to my bedroom closed with my hip, one hand wrapped around my mug of coffee, the other tightly gripping my phone as I make my way outside to the balcony. Draping a blanket over my jean clad legs, I curl up on the swing. "How are you?" I ask gently with a smile as I take her in; the chestnut freshly washed locks, the smile that she's wearing, the one that splits her face in half and makes her look ten years younger. The smile that adds a sparkle to her eyes, already so bright.
The one that I haven't seen in a while painted across her face.
"I'm good," Her soft voice filters through the phone and I hum, distractedly, too busy admiring the most beautiful, selfless in my life. The one who has always put everyone else's needs before her own. "I promise Ari," She murmurs softly and I send her a smile.
"You look good," I admit, my voice low in a murmur and it's true. Her face remains makeup free.
I count each light freckle dotted across her nose and across her cheeks, the worry lines etched across her forehead, the stress of a hard days of work catching up to her, the frown lines in between her eyebrows from yelling at us all over the years as we drove her insane with our constant screaming and bickering between ourselves and the laugh lines carved into her smile from years spent laughing and practically beaming with happiness as she danced across the house in the mornings getting ready to teach at the secondary school she worked at.
I take all of her in, picturing the way she looks on a Sunday morning with her hair all rumpled from having just woken up, her chocolate brown eyes clouded with sleep. She lets out a soft laugh, "What?"
"Nothing." I shake my head and tear my eyes off of her, "You just look beautiful."
"Oh shush," She chuckles shifting on her seat and I bite the smile tugging at my lips back, taking a sip of my coffee. "What are you up to?" She asks a minute later.
"Was just hanging out with the girls," I tell her running a hand through my hair.
"You weren't busy were you?"
My eyes dart over to my open MacBook Air where I was typing up a paper before my phone rang in the lounge and I shake my head.
Studying and my assignments can wait. My sick and dying mother can't. She's more important than any, and I mean any, assignment worth 40% of my final grade or not. Knowing I might never get this opportunity to simply talk to her, one on one, again, I shake my head. "Never too busy for you mama," I flash her a reassuring smile.
