I tottered on the top landing, my toes curled on the stairs of my childhood home. A heavy maroon Webster’s Dictionary balanced precariously on my head. My hands were in a prayer position behind my back, pointing skyward. I was ten years old.

I walked slowly up and down the hallway. “Prunes, prisms,” I said.

My mother nodded. “Say it again,” she said. “Again. Enunciate. Punctuate prunes!”

I walked back and forth, back and forth.

“This is good for you,” she called out.

I continued until my tongue felt twisted and my back ached. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I casually shrugged the dictionary off my head. “I’m stopping now, Mom! I’m going to watch TV.”

Did I really do that? No. Not unless I wanted a walloping.

Back and forth, again and again, praying my mother would finally smile, tell me I was doing it right. Prunes, prisms.

That night, I said my prayers dutifully.

Dear Allah, please bless Mom, Dad, Ray, the cat, the dog, and the fishes. Please bless everyone and every soul, and please forgive everyone and every soul’s sins. If any soul has cancer, diseases, afflictions, and handicaps, please let them not have cancer, diseases, afflictions, and handicaps from this second on for the rest of eternity.

While I prayed, I blinked seven times with one eye, then the other. Always seven. My own private ritual.

Then I prayed the most fervent prayer of all: Please God, please make sure I don’t let my mother down.

Ameen.

Practice makes perfect. By the time I was in grade six, I had no fear in front of large groups and entered a public speaking competition. I stood in black patent leather Mary Janes and a frilly navy polka-dot dress at a podium in front of my entire school.

I said my lines. I paused for laughter at the funny bits—I had every beat down.

My mother stood at the back of the gymnasium, glowing with pride.

W hat is something you loved about your mother? Here is something I loved about mine.

I was rushing home for lunch, my grade four report card fresh in my hands. My younger brother, Reza, and I usually ate lunch at home; Mom always left a meal for us in the fridge. But today, Ray was eating at school, so I was coming home alone. I planned to leave the report card on the dining table for Mom to see when she came home that night. But when I barged through the door, there she was, taking off her alligator pumps in the vestibule, rubbing her feet. (She was always rubbing her feet. Even when she was at work. And she always wore heels—she had a head-to-toe attention to detail that made everything beautiful.) I was........

© The Walrus