From My Mother I Inherited
By Christina, Year 10
From my mother I inherited:
- My mother’s tongue, the language my mother left behind in her home for my future. The vowels I can’t quite get right, but say anyways. Because my mum accepts anyways.
- The culture, the history and stories that my family grew up knowing, stories that my grandparents can’t quite translate right. Confusion reuniting their eyes as they worry about me losing my culture. My mum explains through her broken English. I can’t understand much, but I accept anyways.
- Food, we make, create and consume. To appreciate the wordless culture that connects us. The warmth that spreads through my heart and stomach. The spice that I still quite can’t handle, but try anyway.
- Love, to experience love, to accept and share what makes us humans, a community built on love and trust. Because knowing love no matter what happens, helps.
- Home, a place of belonging to shelter and finding peace. Happiness is wherever my family goes.
- Effort, to do something to the fullest, if I am going to do something I should do it to the best I can.
From My Mother I Inherited by Christina is an excerpt from Postcode Stories 2176. Throughout 2024, Story Factory worked with the students at Prairiewood High School to produce a collection of stories and poems about place and belonging. From fantasy prose to poetic memoir, the students’ musing and individual approaches to storytelling demonstrate their highly personal connections to place. Their words are proudly published in the final book, Postcode Stories.
Postcode Stories was supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
