Blood and Water by Reema

Blood and Water by Reema - November 2022 Scholarship Essay

My mom is a firm believer in good karma, and often tells me that she does good deeds in hope that it will be paid back in return, whether by the receiver or an outside source. She drilled into me that no matter how rough it could be to work with family, it was the one thing I could never risk losing.
Though there was one family member who I could not say the same for. My parents used to live together in England, alongside my aunt and uncle and their twins. Though I was too young to truly understand it at the time, my father was abusive. My mom would hide the signs out of my brother and me’s views, hoping that our childhood would not be marred by the scars of an adult’s vile actions. On the day my mother finally had enough, she told her brother-in-law that she would file for divorce. Before she confronted him, she crept towards the safe holding all of the family passports, and removed mine and my brother’s. Checking one last time to see that nobody was watching, she slid them under the rug and made her way to the dining room.
I never remembered much about that night. Just the freezing cold that washed over me as I stood on the staircase, listening to the shouts reverberating from the dining room, and my aunt bidding me to go back to my room. I tried to complete my homework to no avail, waiting with bated breath for the end to come. When the door to my shared room opened, it was a police officer who stepped into check on our wellbeing. I never understood the emotions that I felt at that moment, only the sobs that wrenched from my throat as I thought the worst had happened.
It wasn’t until years later that my mother told me this story, her opus maximus. The heat of the argument had reached a boiling point. With no words to spare, she informed my father that they would live separate lives from now on. My father, despite not participating in my childhood, declared that he wouldn’t allow his children to leave with her. Calmly, yet repressing the full body shivers of fear, she said “You should have no fear, the children’s passports are still in the safe, and I can’t take them away with me.”
Taking her word, he did not care to check the safe: An error that saved our lives. As the steam of anger filled the air between them, my father proclaimed that if she ever attempted to take us with her, he would slaughter us. No matter her attempts to reason with him, he repeated the statement with more vigor each time. After he’d had enough, he stood up and left the house. My mom shuddered, tightly grasping the object in her hand: a recorder. Though misfortune would come soon. When her brother-in-law drove over to inform my father of her intentions to divorce, an unspeakable rage unleashed. With the single mindedness of a bull, he announced that he would follow through on his threat to kill us, and rushed to the car with a knife in his hand to drive back to our home. My uncle called my mother and screamed frantically, warning us to leave the house, or else die by the hand of my father. Panic arose. There were only two cars in the household: the one my uncle had taken, and the one currently driving towards us with a wish for death.With the quick thinking of the police, and the evidence from my mother’s recording my mother was able to escape with us back to America, safe from the clutches of my father. She had not only given life to us, but saved it once again.
My mom is many things to me. A friend. A confidant. A guiding light. An anchor. A raging storm. Yet above all, she is who I can place trust in. She is the foundation of who I am and the builder. She is one who walks beside me, leads me, and pushes me forward all the same.
She is my mother.