Tender, loving
Silky hair, warm breath
Soft voice
My mother

Impatient and beautiful
Unsympathetic words
Never understanding me
My father's wife

Competition
Unkind and criticizing
Distant but suffocating with her presence
My adversary

A surprise
Newfound friend
A hoard of advice
My ally

Her dependence on me
My support, my love,
My idol, my need
My best friend

This is a poem that I had written some time back and perhaps describes best my relationship with Mamma. The long transition from her being my worst enemy to my best friend. I hated her mostly for the reason that Papa loved her. Now I know why he did… ‘to know her was to love her’. And how could he not!
Her different facets! Her understanding, her quick anger and her quicker repentance, her amazing sense of duty to her mother, her sense of humour, the naughty glint in her eyes, her sensitiveness, her love for her children, the way she smothers our dogs, her obsession for computer games, her beauty and her smile, the softness in her voice, her soft skin and the smell of her hair, the way she teases my father, her short-stories, her quiet suffering, her quest for perfection, her unending patience…. my Ma!