The Silence Between My Mother’s Words

The Silence Between My Mother’s Words

I used to think my mother didn’t love me.

She never said it outright. There were no tender I-love-yous tucked into lunchboxes, no handwritten birthday cards with swirling letters and soft affirmations. When I was little, I clung to friends’ mothers who wrapped them in compliments and giggles, mothers who kissed scraped knees and applauded mediocre talent shows like they were Broadway.

My mother? She adjusted my backpack straps so they wouldn't strain my shoulders. She placed sliced apples on my desk when I stayed up late. She didn't knock when entering my room, only paused long enough to gauge my mood before silently placing folded laundry on my chair.

She loved me in a language I didn’t speak.

In my teenage years, this silence between us grew heavier. I mistook it for disinterest. When I failed a chemistry quiz, she didn’t react. When I got an award, she nodded. When I broke down crying over a heartbreak, she handed me tissues and quietly left me alone.

I resented her calm. I wanted drama. I wanted a mother who would cry with me, scream at boys who hurt me, write Facebook posts about how proud she was. I wanted proof.

But what I had was a woman who never missed a parent-teacher conference, who worked double shifts to pay for my extracurriculars, who never once complained when I needed rides at ridiculous hours.

We were two strangers living under the same roof, bound by blood but separated by the inability to translate each other's love.

It wasn’t until college—away from home, away from the quiet consistency—that I began to feel the void she once filled.

There was no one to replace my toothbrush when it ran out. No one to silently refill my water bottle when I left it empty. No more apples on my desk. My laundry piled up, my headaches throbbed louder, and I began to crave the calm I once condemned.

One particularly stressful week, I called her. I was overwhelmed with deadlines, heartbreak, and homesickness. I didn’t plan to say much. I only wanted to hear her voice.

She answered on the second ring.

“I can’t talk long,” she said. “I’m frying okra.”

Even then, she was feeding someone.

I broke down. Words tumbled out: how I felt behind, lost, confused. How I didn’t know who I was without her quiet routines orbiting me. She listened. Said little. But she didn’t hang up. I could hear the oil crackling on the stove, the clang of utensils, her steady breathing. She stayed with me in that silence.

After I’d finished crying, she asked one question:

“Did you eat?”

I laughed through my tears.

That was her love language.

Not flowery words or big gestures. It was nourishment, consistency, presence. She raised me in a home where love looked like acts of service, like fried okra and folded towels, like showing up every single time.

Years later, I visited her after moving to another city. I found her in the kitchen, as always, chopping onions with practiced rhythm. I offered to help, and she looked at me—really looked—and said, “You always try to fix things.”

That was her version of saying she saw me.

And then, after a pause, she said, “I’m proud of you.”

That was her version of shouting it from the rooftops.

We didn’t hug. We didn’t cry. But something cracked open in that kitchen—something quiet and important. We didn’t become best friends. But we finally became fluent in each other’s silences.

Now, when I think of love, I don’t picture roses or poems or long phone calls.

I picture apples on a desk. Tissues quietly handed over. A steady presence, always there, even when it felt like nothing.

I no longer need my mother to say “I love you.”

I know she already has—every day, in every small way I almost missed.

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Moral of the Story:

Sometimes love isn’t loud, perfect, or poetic—it’s quiet, persistent, and present in the everyday moments we fail to notice.