Nicole Monroe

As a child, the relationship with my mother turned into a musical comfort.

The relationship between my mother and me is like a melody meant to be played on a piano, but the piano was never tuned. As a child, I only heard faint echoes of a beautiful song that I never fully experienced, longing for the harmony and warmth that was promised at birth but was only delivered in echoes. My mind filled with fragments of a song that promised to be beautiful—a symphony of love, support, and guidance. Yet, the reality of the piano’s strings remained unturned.

My mother traded me and my siblings for the temporary fulfillment of being high. After being removed from her care, we would often visit her. During the early visits, I sensed something was off; she was inattentive in conversation, hardly noticing me and my siblings. The visits began to dwindle. Each time we arrived, there was always an excuse for her absence, but my dad was honest with us. We knew the reasons—her drug habits and temporary relationships. Eventually, my mother had another child, a sibling I would never truly know. This new child, like my other siblings, would be shipped off to foster care because of my mom’s immaturity.

My last visit to my mother was a mix of excitement and disappointment. My dad told me we would see her at noon. My stomach churned with excitement; I was eager to hear the music that was her voice and look into her ocean-blue eyes that I adored. When we got to her building, we waited and waited, only to find out that she abandoned us once more. This happened a few more times until I realized that I’d never see my mother again, well at least not for a long time.

To feel a connection with my mother, I would sit in the dark with the fan whirring, recalling the times my mother lay beside me, silent and still, yet her presence filled the room. Even in her absence, I would sit alone in the dark with the fan blowing fiercely, my heart aching and eyes welling with tears, listening to the hum of the fan where the music should have been, dreaming of the melody that I always yearned for.

In my search for a lasting melody, I sought relationships with women to fill my mother’s role. My father began a relationship with a woman whom I grew to love in my mother’s absence. I shared my secrets with her, styled her hair, learned to cook with her, and talked with her late into the night. I believed my love for her was bigger than anything in the world, but I soon realized it was one-sided love. She left me just as my mother had, and I continued to seek out women to fill my mother’s role, only to be left behind each time, never learning my lesson. It wasn’t just the women my dad was dating; I also found solace in my female teachers. I found comfort in their teaching and gentle touch. They were always patient and kind, qualities I had gone without my entire life.

My mother’s absence left me deeply self-conscious, although I never realized it. I constantly questioned my own worth and struggled with self-doubt. Her absence made me fully aware of my flaws, as though the silence she left behind was a void that I could never quite fill. When other kids in school talked about the moments with their mother my mind filled with needless envy.

Even years with her gone, I would sit in the dark with the fan on high, its hum a steady, soothing presence in the darkness. The rhythmic sound of the fan filled the gap between me and my mother, still offering connection in her silence. Although the room was otherwise empty, the fan and darkness reminded me that I wasn’t entirely alone, that my mother was still there in some intangible way.

My mother missed everything that made me who I am today and the accomplishments I achieved along the way. Even though she has made more mistakes than I can count, I’ve never been genuinely angry with her, despite what I thought at times. Many times, in protest, I referred to her by her full name and cried with anger over her taking my siblings away from me. But in reality, I’ve never blamed her for anything bad that has happened in my life. I dislike the way she acts and talks, but I’ve never hated her; I’ve just been disappointed in the way she shows her love for me and my siblings. Coming to that realization has helped me move on and forgive her for all the things she has done. Seeing her again after eight years helped me realize this.
When I walked into my grandparents’ house, there stood my mother at the door, almost as if she had been waiting for me, though she couldn’t have been waiting for me specifically—I wasn’t important enough for that. We exchanged hellos and made very little small talk, and that was that. No hug, no apology, no sign of emotion. After all this time and receiving nothing, and after being hurt once more by my mother, I was finally able to forgive her and move on. I am now done—no distant melody in the back of my mind and no more long nights listening to the hum of the fan. I learned that I don’t need my mother to breathe. I’m finally free from the consequences of her absence. I don’t deserve to be that little girl crying alone in the dark, wishing her mother would show up and just hug her.

As high school began, I finally started to understand that the silence of the untuned piano was not just an absence, but a canvas where I could create my own music. I started to explore new melodies and compositions, using the emptiness left by the untuned piano as an inspiration rather than a void. I started using my voice as my melody. Becoming a woman without my mother’s guidance, I discovered that I could create my own song and in her absence, I finally found my own song.