This is for you, my mother. Miss Florentina.
The strongest and most prominent female I have the pleasure of knowing so closely. Close enough for you to still attempt to brush out the tangles in my hair, wipe the tears from my blotchy cheeks. Kiss my forehead and protect me with every fibre of your being.
Your long dark locks, tanned complexion, the azure shades within your kind eyes. You are the epitome of a half-Gondorian beauty, your figure slender and your posture adequate. I smile at the thought of just how my Breeish father had managed to pull a girl such as yourself. We're often mistaken, you and I. Locals tell me that I am your mirror-image, that, out of the four of your children, I am the one who had inherited such similar looks. That I am often mistaken, for yourself.
As my most dominant peer, you are resilient. You are beautiful. You are strong. I remember the days of my younger years, no older than five or six. Chasing you around meadow-fields, hiding in the waist-length locks of your hair, hiding from the world. Hiding from everything you had warned me about. For you are so wise. And, from that small age, I believed that you knew everything that I could possibly fathom into a suitable question. You have an answer for everything: a smart one, a collected one. You are my guide, my teacher, my peer, my mother. Florentina.
You taught me your lessons so well, not only to read and write or how to cook my supper and clean my drawers. But you taught me the lessons of life. The lessons of loss, the lessons of love. You taught me to remain calm and collected, a sophisticated young woman who was well-spoken and respectable in presence of her elders. You showed me that I should not cry over any boy who had broken my heart, left me alone. Cold. Without purpose. Without a reason to be as inspiringly strong as you are.
Even though I failed you, so many times afterwards. You saw it in my eye: the heartache, the longing. You would stand there and tut pitifully, ready with your spotted handkerchief to snatch away the rogue tears trailing my face, cursing whatever man's name under your breath.
And for that I can only thank you. As graciously as ever, with all of my love.
