One thing I knew for sure about my mother was that she loved to take care of anything, whether it was living or not. When I was a young girl barely out of nursery, she would regale me with stories of all the stray kittens and dogs she adopted as a child, and all of the little quirky names she gave all of them.

Most of our house back then was so inhabited by all these little things she takes care of, from Yawa, our house cat, to a little stack of papers she wouldn't show me, no matter how much I badgered her about them. I understood back then that all these were as important to her as I was. They were like little children.

Like a good child, I tolerated the fact of their existence. They didn't do anything to me, and I kept them "alive". Except Yawa. Yawa was a very special case.

The word yawa, according to my mother, was "demon" in her native tongue, from the place she grew up as a child. And really, that little furball was as close to a demon as he could get. Honestly, how was he able to take a poo on the ceiling fan?

I distinctly remember him hacking up a hairball that largely consisted of what remained of my Math homework. That little demon managed to bring down my grade for an entire quarter because he mistook a paper for something to eat.

Of course, I retaliated by replacing his food bowl with shredded paper. His puzzled, furious eyes stalking me in retaliation was the root of most of my childhood nightmares.

This little "war" would be the basis of our relationship with Yawa, with the occasional ceasefire when my mother would come looking. The little demon would be the pesky little brother I never had. He was the basis of passive-aggressive, and I loved him to bits.

My mother's love didn't just go to little furry things. She also maintained a little garden on our tiny apartment's windowsill. There were flowers, herbs, and the occasional weed she took pity on, and she took care of them, every day or so, without fail. Sometimes, she'd even let me water them, which the six-year-old me translated to drowning them under a few inches of water.

Despite my childhood mishaps, my mother still loved me. And all her other things.

Back then, I wouldn't know why she loved those little things. To the child me, they were like her other children, just a bit more silent. And I took that opportunity to be just like my mother, caring for them as well.

I mean, there was no one else to take care of in my home. Just me and my mother, and all her little children.

Little by little, as the years went by, the little children of hers took another shape. Not just as my mother's little quirks, but little conduits. Little conduits for a love that was never returned.

The papers on her desk that she wouldn't show me, no matter how much I badgered her about them, revealed everything. How love was given, taken, and never returned.

The wide-eyed girl with pigtails in her hair was gone, replaced by another office worker in a sea of millions. I was just another cog in the machine, with another irrelevant story to tell. Another culmination of a series of experiences, never to be noticed except by the Human Resources department.

Sometimes I look back at the lone plant I have on my desk, half-wilted from the lack of sunlight. People see it as a pest, something that shouldn't be allowed in the harsh environment of canis canem.

I just see it as a little conduit.

A conduit of a love I never returned.

Sorry mom.