She's right, of course. How silly of me. Your mother is, at least for most people, your friend for life, the one who will not forsake or turn away from you, no matter what. And what better time to be reminded of this than now, just before Mother's Day.
And now that I have children of my own I know what motherly love is and I see how it is returned. Sometimes all with show and affection, sometimes with hardly any show at all, but still there nevertheless. I am lucky that my children, the younger two especially, are not afraid to tell me and show me that they love me, and I know what my love back to them is for: providing a service.
Here you are, it says, have this unconditional adoration from me with a cherry on top. Have my admiration and affection, my hugs and kisses, my ear to listen to you when you are moaning, my shoulder to cry on when you are upset, my broad back to carry your burdens as well as my own as best I can. Take anything and everything I have. Every ounce of empathy and sympathy I can muster. Every bit of strength and every morsel of time at my disposal. And on top of all that have this meal I have cooked for you and this pile of clean washing, and this snack I have brought up three flights of stairs. Take it all and I will ask for nothing in return, except, of course, your love back to me, because I am your mother.
And when I hold my youngest child in my arms as he lies in bed at night (which I still do) sometimes I think of all the children without mothers. Those sleeping on city streets in India or Africa. Those who have been abandoned or denied parents through death or disaster. And I imagine for a moment that I am holding one of them also, because it is an almost unbearable thing to think of a child without his mother, longing for that special love that has been denied him.
And what of my mother? Well she's not like yours. You know those arguments you had with your friends when you were little: my mother is better than your mother? No? Well I do, and mine really was, and is, better than theirs and yours. My mother looks younger than she is, and acts younger than she is, and is full of life despite now being 75 years-old.
My mother is the chattiest, friendliest, ever-so-slightly maddest person you could ever wish to meet. Think of an extrovert and double it. When I was a child I thought she was the sexy lady whose silhouette danced to the opening titles of Roald Dahl's Tales of The Unexpected, because she too was little with a blonde bob and danced just like that; she still dances whenever she can.
And my mother was the little girl with the Shirley Temple bow in her curled fair hair, whom everyone thought was special because even her name was special and different from everyone else's. Someone who became a teacher and then a head teacher when all the other mothers I knew did nothing, or so it seemed to me, and that made her special too. And she was busy, always busy, which was the one thing I didn't like about my mother, because that 'business' took her away from me.
And when she is gone I will grieve for my mother more than anyone has ever grieved for theirs. My loss will be greater than yours, my heartache stronger. In her own words it will leave a huge hole, and the hole my mother leaves behind will be the biggest.
Happy Mother's Day to my mother and to all mothers everywhere.
Love E x
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Now that I don't know how she doesn't do it is a mother herself, she truly appreciates the friendship and understanding that can exist between mother and daughter
"Here you are, it says, have this unconditional adoration from me with a cherry on top. Have my admiration and affection, my hugs and kisses, my broad back to carry your burdens as well as my own as best I can. Take anything and everything I have, every bit of strength and every morsel of time at my disposal, and on top of all that have this meal I have cooked for you and this pile of clean washing, and this snack I have brought up three flights of stairs, take it all and I will ask for nothing in return, except, of course, your love back to me, because I am your mother."
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