The party was over. The children were sleepy. While papa bear put baby bear to sleep, little bear watched and teased baby bear by making funny faces and sticking his tongue out at her when papa bear wasn’t looking. Baby bear squealed and reach out to playfully hit little bear and little bear moved. Baby bear hit the bed instead and papa bear who was gently patting baby bear to sleep frowned and shouted at little bear not to tease baby bear. It happened every night.
Aunt bear, who was leaning against the wall until now, watching, turned to her sister – mama bear. The television was just loud enough to prevent papa bear from hearing what aunt bear had to ask mama bear. “What’s it like?”
Mama bear who was washing the dishes turned to aunt bear with a frown: “What’s what like?”
“To be you.
Describe it. So that I can taste it. Describe it like you would a painting to a blind man.”
Mama bear turned. The television serial was still loud enough. Still frowning she looked at aunt bear.
“I don’t get angry because someone I love will get hurt, I cook because someone I love is hungry, I come home because someone I love is waiting for me, I wake up early because someone I love needs me to do something that can be done only at that hour.”
The serial breaks into an ad. Mama bear is crying. “I don’t know where he goes, or who he meets, or what he does wherever he goes with whomever he meets, but I know one thing,” she wipes her tears away, “when he comes home, he looks at me the way he looks at no one else on this planet and he and me both know that no one on this planet can nor will ever look at him the way I do.
And that’s me.”
She looks at her sister, who’s looking at the spotted tiles.
“You can still have my life, you know.”
Aunt bear looks up, gently leans her head back against the wall, and just stares. “I can have your life as much as you can have mine.
It’s like being blind.
A man who’s been blind all his life can see as much as a seeing man cannot.
I won’t change.”
Labels: love
