‘You need to learn to fight’ my mother told me on Christmas Eve.
‘It is not good to go placidly in all things. You need to fight back too’.
I held my bruised knuckles and swallowed the sob in my throat.
‘But it hurts more to fight,’ I choked.
‘I will not break my own heart’.
My mother looked at me with an old pain and memory,
‘My darling he will not make you happy if you do not fight’.