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.
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.
“I’m still here, Mom,” I said.
The first sign was the silence.
She turned her head slowly. For one second—just one—I saw a flicker of cobalt blue in her iris. A tiny, stubborn pixel of the woman who taught me how to name every color in the crayon box. Watching My Mom Go Black
I sat next to her in the dark. I took her cold hand—once the color of sand, now the color of slate.
Then it sank. And she went black again.
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 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. She used to be yellow—the good kind
Then her eyes went first. The light in them didn't fade; it retreated . Like an animal backing into a cave. She looked at me, but she looked through me, searching for a little girl who no longer existed.