GWYNEIRA.

By Kate Radford

Gwyneira, it means snow white in Welsh. I was born with jet-black hair and Celtic pale skin, the image of my mother.  I walked into a bakery in south wales with one of my cousins, and a woman behind the counter collared me straight away:

“You HAVE to be Michelle’s daughter, Duuuhh, you’re the spit of her you are!”

There’s something about seeing those rolling welsh hills, with the mist resting on top of them, and the black and white checkerboard of gravestones on the hillside, that screams out secrets.

We used to go to wales at least 4 times a year, to see family, to drink lager, to run off with my cousins and smoke cigarettes.

My grandmother was quiet. She had curly copper wire sat on the top of her head like a mechanical birds nest, and cold to the touch like one penny piece.

I don’t remember anything she said to me, anytime she hugged me, or kissed me. I don’t remember anytime she hugged her, kissed her either. I knew… everyone knew…. To behave.

I never knew exactly why my mum moved out, what happened, the family history, all I heard was the night that my grandfather put a broken bottle up to my aunties throat and my mum stepped, in, doused the fire, then packed her things and left.

I remember seeing my mother’s face when she told me she had died and I laughed, and then she laughed. I didn’t laugh because it was funny, but because that’s what children do when they feel really bloody awkward. I don’t remember tears, just practicality, she nursed my grandmother until she died, and saw the blood poisoning her body as she slowly turned purple and left this world screaming. I guess when your own mother goes, a part of your ‘inner’ mother goes with it, because that’s when my mother became cold like a one penny piece.

I don’t think she wanted to be a mother then, when I was between 10 and 15, she would rather have erased, pressed fast forward, rather deal with grieving her own childhood than grasping mine. I moved out when I was 17 too…

If you want to see my mothers face look in mine, if you want to find my mothers 17 year old broken heart, its still buried in the valleys.

I don’t want to grieve my childhood, when I’m watching my own. I don’t want to see the curiosity in my child’s face, when they did as I did, and try and uncover the family secrets, only instead finding some of history repeating itself.

I used to write stories, and poems, I’ve been writing my whole life, finding comfort in words, in language, so I don’t have to say it myself, and spell it out in black and white like the checkerboard gravestones on the hilltops. I wrote it down for an English class once, one of the more vivid memories, of her tearing my room apart and I lay there, too empty to cry, to scared to sleep until it was over.

She writes poetry too.

.

I don’t want to be cold to the touch like a one penny piece.

I don’t know if my mum knows how to heal, I don’t think she ever got to forgive her mother. I want to forgive mine. I will let her silence keep her, and let our laughter hold our hearts like glue.

When you realize your parents are human, suddenly your capacity for love is infinite. You cannot love a pretend thing, an idea. And rain or shine, fixed or broken, shiny or scuffed. My mother is all my own.

And I am hers forever.