A Difficult Mountain

A Difficult Mountain

A few days ago, since i had just received a paycheck,
i had offered to fund my mother's trip to the city.
So yesterday when i told her about the theft,
we decided to cancel the trip for now. She wasn't surprised.
She told me how every little benefit she makes is leveled
by fate, how she keeps coming back, razed right down to
where she started from. Years of defeat have taught her
humility. Like my discomfiture at the thought that the
thieves looked right into my sleeping eyes and left is
almost a feeling of violation. She tells me, these days
her dreams are of climbing uphill on a difficult mountain
where she is always falling short of footholds or of climbing
an endlessly long flight of stairs. And if she gets to the top
somehow, she realizes there is no way to go back down.
I try to tell her it should be fine. Half-pleased that
she connects the metaphors and half-scared she will
understand their immensities suddenly one day.