Reflections on My Mother

“It is considered rare, beyond price. Though it follows no known pattern of quilt-making, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling.”

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens by Alice Walker details the creative spirit that was manifested in every aspect of her mother’s life. Her mother was poor and worked from dawn to dusk, both in the fields to earn her family’s bread and also keeping house. Her mother made every towel, sheet, and blanket in the family’s house and every meal. Yet although these actions are not always considered great art, Walker’s mother was still a profoundly gifted and creative person.

The quotation above describes an artifact hung in the Smithsonian museum by an unidentified African American woman. Despite the fact her name is not known and she created the quilt using only the poorest scraps of fabric—all that she had—she was still capable of creating art. Every towel Walker’s mother made, every meal her mother cooked, was a creative act, Walker states, just like the artist whose quilt is in that museum. But sometimes these profound acts of creativity go unacknowledged if they are made by Black, poor women like her mother.

What might not be evident on the surface about me is the struggles of my own mother. My mother is a single parent and works hard every day, not just at her job, but also going to law school. Like Walker, she works two jobs—outside the home and in the home. She is always trying to better herself. Seeing my mother work hard has inspired me to work harder to make her proud. I hope by getting into the high school to which I am applying will help me achieve my goals, especially given how my mother has told me to value education above all else. I think getting into a high school with a demanding curriculum that values diversity and achievement will enable me to meet my goals, even if on the surface, I might not seem like seem like the perfect student. But like my mother, I am always trying to better myself, making do with what I have, like the woman who made a beautiful quilt out of scraps of rag.