As my mother grew smaller in time

I do not remember exactly when it happened. When my mother stopped being the person who always seemed to know everything, and slowly became someone who sometimes needed my help with the simplest things. 

Maybe it was in the way she began repeating stories she had already told me, smiling at memories as though telling them for the first time. 

Maybe it was in the way she now asks questions about things she once handled so easily. Or maybe it was in the quiet moments when I realised that the woman who spent her whole life protecting me was, little by little, becoming fragile.

And if I am honest, sometimes I do not understand it.

Sometimes I lose patience. I answer too quickly. I become frustrated when she asks me the same thing again, or when she worries over something that feels so small to me. 

In those moments, I forget. I forget who she has been for me all my life. I forget the endless patience she had when I was the difficult one.

I remember running a fever one night when I was a child. The rain outside was relentless, drumming against the windows as if the whole sky was restless with me. 

I remember waking up half-conscious and finding my mother sitting beside my bed, her hand resting gently on my forehead. She had not slept. 

Her eyes were tired, but every few minutes she checked my temperature, adjusted my blanket, and whispered softly that everything would be alright. 

I do not remember how long that night was for her. I only remember feeling safe, completely, unquestioningly safe, because she was there.

That is what mothers do. They make your fears smaller. They stand guard over your pain as though it is their own.

And yet now, there are moments when she asks me something simple; how to work the television remote, where she left her glasses, whether I remembered to eat, and I respond with impatience, with a tired sigh, with irritation she does not deserve.

Then guilt settles quietly in my chest.

Childhood wrapped in one frame

Because my mother never made me feel like I was too much. She never treated my endless questions like burdens. 

She listened to stories that made no sense, comforted tears over broken toys and childish heartbreaks, and somehow made room for every version of me, confused, loud, stubborn, helpless.

Now time is changing her in ways I cannot stop.

I see it in the pauses between her sentences, in the little things she forgets, in how she sometimes needs reassurance for things she once would have handled alone. 

And I am slowly learning that love, when it comes full circle, asks for patience.

Once, she held my hand so I would not fall. Now life is quietly asking me to walk slower, so she does not feel left behind.

Once, she made space for all of my innocence and helplessness. Now I must make space for hers.

Caring for my mother is not a duty. It is gratitude. It is love returning to the place where it first began.

I still fail sometimes. I still lose patience. I still forget.

But I realise, if she could carry me through my weakest days with love, then surely I can learn to hold her through hers.