Lioness

'Write about good-byes'
My mother somberly announced.
'Write about good-byes because you will be leaving soon.' ​
I tried to explain that soon isn't here. I tried to explain that soon is in the future. I tried to explain that I'd rather write about the moment. I tried... but she stuck to her guns as a lioness would. A lioness would smell a goodbye from a land away. A lioness would sense danger in an instant. A lioness would ponder about separating from her cubs and nothing that I would say could possibly change that.

My mother is a lioness and I have learned long ago that I, a mere cub, must listen to what its mother - the lioness - says. So I wrote about goodbyes. And I wrote about my mother. And I wrote about the cutting of the cord; The first trauma that we re-live with each and every good-bye we come across.