On Mothering Sunday
Valerie, my mother
What are you to do on Mothering Sunday if you have no mother? My mother died in 2005 and each year I confront this troubling question when the annual celebration comes around.
If I was religious I might light a candle or lay flowers on a grave, yet neither of these is an acceptable option for me. Contemplating advertisements for Mothering Sunday gifts, I deliberate privately over the tender question as my sense of loss deepens in the approach to this particular day, only for it to dissipate afterwards. This uneasy resolution brings no peace, serving to remind me how much I miss her. It is a feeling which grows with each Mothering Sunday that passes, as the distance in time that separates us increases and the memories fade. I do not expect or wish to ‘get over it,’ I seek to live in peace with my sadness.
I wish she could see where I live now and I could share the joys of my life with her. I have a frustrated instinct to communicate delights, still identifying sights and experiences that I know she would enjoy.
My picture of her has changed. The painful experience of her final years when she was reduced to helpless paralysis by the onset of dementia has been supplanted by a string of fragmentary images from my childhood – especially of returning from school on summer afternoons and discovering her at work in her garden.
I think of how she raised her head when she smiled, tossing her hair in assertion of a frail optimism. ‘Not too bad, thank you!’ she is admitting, lifting her head to the light and assuming a confident smile with a flash of her eyes. This was her default answer to any enquiry into her wellbeing – whether it was a routine or genuine question – and she maintained it through the years, irrespective of actual circumstances. When life was smooth, it was a modest understatement and when troubles beset her, it was a discreet expression of personal resilience. For her, it was a phrase capable of infinite nuance and I do not believe she ever said it in the same way. Yet although I could always appreciate the emotional reality that lay behind her words, I think for everyone but me and my father it was an opaque statement which efficiently closed the line of enquiry, shielding her private self from any probing conversation. From her I learnt the value of maintaining equanimity and keeping a sense of proportion, whatever life brings.
I realise that I was lucky to have a mother who taught me to read before I started school at four years old. Denied the possibility of a university education herself, she encouraged me to fulfil her own thwarted ambitions and – perhaps more than I appreciate – I owe my life as a writer to her. Yet there is so much I could say about my mother that it is almost impossible to write anything. I recognise that the truth of what she means to me is in a region of emotion that is beyond language, but I do know that what she was is part of who I am today.
Increasingly, I am aware that many of those around me also share this situation of no longer having mothers. Perhaps I should buy them all flowers this Mothering Sunday? Certainly if anyone enquires, I shall reply ‘Not too bad, thank you!’ with a smile and raise my head. In that moment, I shall conjure her robust spirit from deep inside me and she will be present, in my demeanour and in my words, this Mothering Sunday.
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What a beautiful and thoughtful tribute to your mother. Thank you so much for sharing, I shall embrace my late mother’s presence to keep with me all day today too.
This is beautiful. Thank you. My mother was just taken ill and went to hospital. She is in New York and will be 90 in May. I’m aware of her frailty and her usual robust strength and energy slowly weakens. Thankfully she is fully alert mentally that we can still have our conversations, arguments and I have time to say “I love you” over the phone. She atoo replies whenever I ask “How are you?”, Hai Gum Lah, in Cantonese which roughly translates to As It Is, kind of her attitude of acceptance of what life gives you and take life as is.
A truly wonderful piece .
Inspiring and a token for us with no mothers alive to battle on and adopt our mother’s stance .
If I may and such chances are rare I would like to submit a poem from time ago about my Mum :
Mum
By Andy Strowman
Copyright
Silver black, glass frames like flowers,
Painted blue , dress all green .
Sad as a ghost ,crying for a friend ,
Deserted abs destroyed by evil hands .
Roasted and peppered ,unloved and abandoned ,
I became your solace . A child
Of warm soldiers.
Laughing friendless
Unknown to many
Terrified and stupor
Ran far from me .
First written 17.2.2021
andy.strowman1@gmail.com
Among other things, my mum taught me how to sew on buttons, repair stockings and do any kind of sewing at all. She gave me an old needle case (from the 1940s) for this purpose. Whenever I pick up the needles, I notice her handwritten message: ‘Have fun sewing! (but please don’t get cross!)’
Tomorrow my mum turns 95, and I’m going to take flowers to her grave. Later this year, my dad will reach his 100th birthday — he was born in the same year as Queen Elizabeth II…!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
Today’s words could just as well have been written by me in a tribute to my own mother. The parallels are uncanny. My mother taught me to read pre-school, I love to recall sitting on her lap by the fire working through my latest book. It is one of my earliest memories besides being taken as a toddler in a pram on a hop-picking trip and the birth of my sister. My mum too suffered with dementia for many years before she left us. These were painful times yet now I look back even at that part of her life through different eyes, appreciating for example that towards the end she was blissfully unaware that her husband of 60+ years had died or that she was herself close to death. Because of her I have been a lifelong avid reader and learner and in retirement I have managed to devote time to writing. She also gave me so much more. She is always with me because she is me and I am her.
What a truly beautiful tribute.
Such a lovely tribute GA.
It has really helped me to read of your experience of your memories of your mother and how time has allowed you to reflect and remember some happier times from the earlier days you shared with her. My own mum died just two weeks ago after a long and happy life clouded by a final 9 months of very rapid dementia which, so far ,is hard to see through.
I love the idea of buying flowers for friends who have also lost their mothers. I am off to do that now.
Aw.. such a lovingly heartfelt remembrance of your mother & so kind to think of others in tribute.
I myself have beautifully tender memories of my own dear mum, Hannah, who also suffered from that dreadfully cruel thief, Alzheimers …
Always in my heart & long may she rest in loving peace.
What a lovely tribute to your dear mother, and not dissimilar from memories I have of my own mother, albeit she’s been gone for almost 30 yrs. I’m sometimes pulled up when I see or hear something I know would interest her, and say to myself “I must tell….” and then remember that I can no longer do so. She was also adored by my two sons who spent all of their childhood knowing her and spending time with her, so is far from forgotten. My mum also suffered from dementia in her later years, so although she no longer appeared to recognise any of us in her final years, we still knew exactly who she was.