Watching My Mom Go Black Online

One Tuesday, I found her sitting in the dark living room, blinds drawn. Not crying. Just absorbing . The shadows from the streetlight outside crawled up her arms like vines. I turned on the lamp.

The first sign was the silence.

She used to be yellow—the good kind. The yellow of lemon zest, of morning eggs, of the sun through the kitchen blinds as she hummed Stevie Wonder off-key. Her hands were the color of warm sand then, always moving, braiding my hair or tapping the counter to a rhythm only she could hear. Watching My Mom Go Black

“I’m still here, Mom,” I said.

It didn’t happen all at once. Not like a blown fuse or a curtain drop. It was more like a slow-developing photograph, but in reverse: the color draining from the edges, then the middle, until only shadows remained. One Tuesday, I found her sitting in the

Not a peaceful quiet. The kind that fills a room after a slammed door. She started staring at the TV after the news went off, watching the static snow. I’d catch her in the hallway at 3 a.m., not sleepwalking, just standing , as if she’d forgotten the geography of her own home.

“Don’t,” she whispered. Her voice was gravel. “The light hurts.” The shadows from the streetlight outside crawled up

I started noticing the clothes. All black. Not mourning black, but erasure black. The purple blouse I loved? Gone. The floral dress she wore to my graduation? Buried in a trash bag on the curb. She said color "screamed." She preferred the quiet of ash.