Zagawar Lwin

Imaginative Piece:

The rise of the morning sun kissed the four white walls that held us captive. It was warmer
than that of the soup the nurse had brought into the room but immeasurable to my mother’s
palms. I held tighter, never wanting to let go; allowing my fingers to interlace and burn with
hers. She was now at the age of eighty-two, reaching her inevitable doom. She didn’t see it as
her impending end, but rather freedom from her existential crisis and regret.

“Don’t pity me,” she scoffed.

“That’s one way of saying ‘good morning’,” I laughed. “How was your sleep? Was it good?”
I began with some small talk as I brought her stale hospital breakfast onto her bed tray.

“Why do you even bother asking? It was just like every other sleep. I close my eyes, I have a
dream about something absurd, then I wake up and forget what my dream was about. The
end.” My mother wasn’t always this grumpy, but after my father had died it was like she had
an epiphany of sorts and became in a sense a selfish person.

“Jeez, I was just asking,” I retorted under my breath.

“Jeez? That’s a lot of nerve coming from someone who I lived the majority of my life for.”
My mother gave birth to me at the age of twenty, and then my little brother at twenty-three.
Which left her raising us for the entirety of her young adult and adult life; and like most dads,
he was around but always at work.

“You know, after your father died, I realised how much of life I had missed on. Even though
you and your brother were the light of my life, I never got to experience life like other
twenty-somethings. I spent every second cooking, cleaning, buying groceries and tending to
the needs of your father. I didn’t get to go to university, even though I could afford it,
because I thought this was how life was meant to be for a woman like me.” I turned the T.V.
off and sat at the foot of her bed.

“Is that why you …changed after dad’s death?” I hesitantly asked, reaching for her hand.

“I didn’t change, I just started thinking. Before, when he was still alive, I was a robot. Every
day I was on autopilot, doing the same things I had done for the past forty-five years. But
little did I realise how numb I was,” her gaze dropped to our fingers, rubbing against each
other like branches. Her breath swimming out as she sighed before speaking again.

“I have a lot of regrets. Having my family was never one of them, but the fact that I never got
to fulfil my dreams like writing a book or something as trivial as going clothes shopping
alone, fills me up with an immense amount of regret.”

“But mum, you shouldn’t dwell on the past. It’s not like you can change what happened,
right?”

“Exactly, I dwell on the past because that’s the only way I know how to control the past.
There’s no point controlling the future either, if mine’s going to be spared short.”
 Zagawar Lwin

“Look here,” her voiced wavered as the warmth of her palms cushioned my cheeks. “Don’t
live a predictable life like me. You will be devoured by regret and left rethinking your whole
life before your death bed. Die happy for my sake OK?”

It was then, in that moment, time stood still and the sun had kissed my head one last time.

Reflection:

In my imaginative piece, I have explored the idea of life and death through the lenses of a
parent and child relationship. In the narrative, I tell the story of a mother who is slowly dying
in a literal sense as well as from the burden of regret she has lived with since the death of her
husband, the protagonist’s father. By utilising stylistic features such as linear storytelling,
personification and sensory imagery, I have been able to incorporate the elements of Gwen
Harwood’s writing into my own style of writing. Additionally, I have explored the nuances of
a parent and child relationship similar to that of in Harwood’s two-part poem ‘Father and
Child’.

The underlying focus of the narrative is the relationship between the daughter, who is the
narrating persona, and her mother. Initially, the mother’s dialogue is in a hostile tone, which
is emphasised by the adverb ‘scoffed’ and the rhetorical question ‘Why do you even bother
asking?’. This sense of hostility the mother carries is not directed towards her daughter but
rather herself, which suggests the immense regret she feels for not making herself the role
model she wanted for her daughter. This concept of responsibility, which is prevalent in
Harwood’s poem, is integrated into my narrative in a similar linear storytelling fashion. In
‘Part 1: Barn Owl’, Harwood explores the responsibility a parent has over their child, and in
the latter ‘Part 2: Nightall’, the narrative is flipped. However, my story explores both
simultaneously which is indicated by the daughter acting as a caretaker and her mother
sharing her life advice.

Personification in the opening and ending line act to parallel each other and create realisation
within the audience – this is then emphasised by the use of sensory imagery. The sun is used
as a consistent motif throughout the narrative to first evoke the feeling of warmth that is
associated with motherly figures. Then in conjunction with the action of being ‘kissed’, the
sun is personified to become a metaphor of the mother and ultimately create an atmosphere of
love.