“The last time I saw my mother” by Nadja Halilbegovich

The last time I saw my mother, she flew thousands of miles to visit me. We had been living on separate continents for half of my life — ever since I escaped the war in my native Bosnia at 16. We loved each other fiercely, but our short visits could not make up for the time and distance always tugging at our relationship. She died a few months later, from complications of heart surgery.

In the decade since her passing, I have held onto the good memories. I have fantasized about what could have been had she lived and had we made more memories. I have also replayed our hurts and misunderstandings, changing my behaviour and softening her reactions to reclaim the points of connection we had missed — if only in my imaginings.

In the past five years, I have discovered a real love for cooking. And yet, with it came the disappointment that it had not happened sooner, while she was still here.

Over time, my grief has morphed into brief moments of fantasy where I taste the soup I have just finished seasoning and imagine passing a spoonful to my mother who nods and licks her lips. Or when I make the cherry cobbler — the one it took a dozen tries to get as close to hers as I could without a recipe — and take it out of the oven while it is still bubbling. I conjure her next to me, proud as anything.

In my do-over fantasies, I am more patient and present than I was in reality. On her last visit, we went to an international foods store with a long list of groceries to make a Bosnian feast. I darted to the Balkan section, but my mother paused in front of a display of tropical fruit. Fixated on our mile-long list, I ignored her childlike wonder as she took in the unfamiliar shapes and textures and told her to hurry. She looked so wounded and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the shopping trip.

Now every time I pass by exotic fruit, I feel a stab of regret for missing out on what could have been a lovely memory of picking fruit together and tasting it for the first time.

I have this framed picture of her holding me as a baby. She is so young and glowing. I am barely a few weeks old. I have not yet done or accomplished anything, but she is looking at me with such pride as if I am already everything I need to be. 

I have rarely seen that look in my adulthood and it stings a little knowing that I might have caused her some hurt or disappointment simply by choosing the life I am living.

After she died, my father brought me a suitcase of her belongings. Although most of her clothes fit me, they somehow feel wrong on my body. When I look in the mirror, I keep seeing my mother wearing them at various occasions in my childhood and the memories make me teary. 

And yet, I feel a certain paralysis at the mere thought of donating. 

So they wait. They wait for my sorrow to feel less heavy. They wait for something.

The same goes for her jewelry which I keep in small containers. Every once in a while, I choose one box to crack open just long enough to get a whiff of her scent.

Strangely, the possession that connects me to her the most is a pink shirt she mended on her last visit. Part of the hem had fallen and although I knew how to fix it, I asked her to sew it by hand, like she did when I was a child. I have not worn it since fearing the stitches would come out from wearing and washing.

Every few months, I run my fingers across the hem she fixed. I caress each stitch starting with the small knots on either end. The loops of pink thread, loose and fragile, are the undoubtable proof of her love and care for me. No matter any hurt or disappointment we had over the years, her love feels unbreakable.

In an effort to leave something for the future, I stop myself from counting the stitches, even though I really want to. I do this so I always have something of my mother to look forward to. It may seem silly, but in this way, I feel I can stave off the finality of her death a little longer.

In the ocean of lasts — the last hug, the last kiss, the last email, the last visit — I cling to anything I can to keep her here with me, whether through a memory, a fantasy, or some uncounted stitches of pale pink. 

Nadja Halilbegovich is the author of My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary (from Kids Can Press here). She is a writer and public speaker and lives in Toronto.

This essay was originally published in the Toronto Star for Mother’s Day.

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