Hot sun, light filtering between leaves, my legs covered in mud, my mom tucking me into bed with a small green book in hand. As I get older, these memories fade, but I feel their warmth grow stronger as each year passes and each new wrinkle on my mother’ s face appears. When I was younger, my mom would read The Giving Tree to me every night, and each time we arrived at the last page, when the tree was nothing but a whittled-down stump, I couldn’ t help but be saddened by this, I didn’ t understand how somebody could be so willing to give up every single part of themselves to someone else. When I was younger, I lived without knowing the truth of my family’ s situation. I would bristle with anger when my mom couldn’ t get me new shoes or when she couldn’ t pay my lunch fees at school, when she would send me with a sandwich in a Walmart bag. I didn’ t understand then what I do now; she tried her hardest to give my sisters and I everything we needed, and it hurt her when she couldn’ t give us what we wanted. I always asked for more, and I was bitter when I didn’ t receive it; I was happy when I was sent to stay with my grandmother because she would give and give and give, not knowing that my mother was working day and night to do the same.
While my childhood was spent rolling down grassy hills, playing with my grandmother’ s chickens, and not fully understanding The Giving Tree, my mother’ s early twenties and thirties were spent being cut down again and again, giving her leaves, her apples, and her branches to her children who didn’ t even appreciate her enough to say thank you. As I have gotten older and have
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