Illustration by Kamalia Blunt l VOX Staff

By Kamalia Blunt
VOX Staff

I was 8 years old when I first saw a dead body. My mother laid on the bed as still as any store mannequin and as cold as a block of ice. I didn’t know what was going on. Tears fell from my face as if my heart knew something my brain did not comprehend. I stood at the foot of her bed, surprised and afraid, while my brothers and my father did everything possible in hopes of awakening her from her eternal slumber. I called to her, I shook her, and I splashed water onto her calloused face. I did everything, but my attempts were futile.

“I’m going to call the hospital,” my father told us with red and puffy eyes. When he went downstairs, my brothers and I followed and sat on the couch in complete silence. The only sounds that pierced the air were our unceasing sobs and whimpers. My brother Moe and I were crying, but my oldest brother, Gabe, remained solemn. He didn’t release a single tear. We sat on that couch, motionless, speechless and overwhelmed for what seemed like an eternity. Then the ambulance came.

The Undeniable Truth
“I’m sorry, sir …,” the paramedic said in a melancholy voice after what seemed like hours. “She’s gone. There is nothing more we can do.”

Now I got it. Now I understood. The undeniable truth laughed in my face with complete malice. I just prayed that I was wrong. I ran to my dad: “Daddy, what’s going on? Is Mommy OK?” I knew the answer.

My father looked at me as his eyes unleashed waterfalls. Calling me by my nickname, he said, “Sam, Mommy’s gone. She’s not coming back.” Still holding on to my father, I watched as two men carried my mother’s body outside. Sober cries and red and blue flashing lights filled the night air as the ambulance and my aching heart faded to black.

Unspoken Promises
I never told my mother that I loved her often, never spent enough time with her. Everything I should have done, I realized I hadn’t.

After she died, I began to vent all of my emotions by doing any activity that would either take my mind off of her death or try to gain some understanding as to why that had happened to me. I took long walks around the neighborhood and wrote poetry. There were people who tried to help me, talk with me and do things with me that a mother would; but I isolated myself from others and from the world. I was utterly alone; that’s what it felt like. Two years after my mother passed, I realized that I was only hurting myself by not letting anyone in, so I became more open and less confined to my walls of isolation.

The memory of my mother’s death is as vibrant and as damaging as the night she passed away, but I am surviving. I made many unspoken promises to my mother and to myself: Live for the moment and cherish life; never give up or back down; do every deed and action in honor of my mother; make her proud to call me her daughter.

To this day, I follow through with those promises. I will until my soul leaves Earth. I am proud to be who I am (a strong and proud female) and what I am (a multiracial Filipino, African-American, Native-American and Hawaiian baby) because of my mother.

In Honor of My Mother
When I meet new people, I always greet them with a smile, a hug, a big “Hello!” or “Hey Buddy, how’s it going?” When I do certain acts like simply showing a teacher or another adult respect, I do them with dignity and pride. When something happens such as the death of a loved one, I keep my head held high and my chin toward the sky. These are things that my mother always did. In honor of her memory, I do the same with a little Kamalia thrown into the mix.

My mother did all she could in her short time of living, and if you look at the way my brothers, my sister and I behave, you would say she did a great job. No matter who or what comes my way, a picture of my mother appears in my head, and I can take it all in stride then go home and scream all of my issues into a pillow. Afterward, I inhale, exhale and move on with the day.

At a young age, I learned that life goes on no matter what happens. And we all have to learn to cope with it. We can’t sit at home or on the couch and mope all day long and just wish for the best. I came to realize that despite the negative events that happen to us, we are the ones who decide whether we’ll fall and stay down or get back up. I decided to get back up.

Kamalia is a sophomore at Washington who says she procrastinates on a lot of assignments.