Mother Love

This is a tribute to my Mother.

My Mother, who has always been there, for my Father, for my Sister. For me.

As I edge towards the end of my fifth decade of life, I find myself thinking about all that she must have done and seen, all that she must have lived through that I will never know about. What was it like for her before me? And what was it like having to give birth to a deformed child? And yet she nursed me. She raised me. She taught me to be a good boy. She loved my face.

She was there the day I discovered my Father could cry. My Sister poked gentle fun at her for falling asleep watching television. And she’d listen patiently as I babbled everything I thought my teenaged self needed to say. Of course, I’d figure it out eventually, whatever it was. It was just nice to know that someone cared.

My Mother.

She welcomed my soon to be Wife with open arms. She grieved on the day I married and left the nest. We continued to hold hands over the telephone. Her heart never abandoned me, my Mother, who was kindness personified. Who I strive to emulate.

And now I see that time has caught up with her. Now she’s a ghost of her former self, no longer the woman I grew up with, looked up to. Kindness personified has become a slow and drawn out forgetting. She is reduced to haunting the shadowed halls of her oldest memories. I hope at least it’s beautiful there.

Is it supposed to be like this? Is it not enough that we die? Must we also be stripped of everything we are and hold dear? Must we be taken away before we’re truly taken away? Yet we live like there will be a tomorrow, hopeful in the face of certain oblivion.

For my birthday this year I want the impossible gift. I want her disease to be lifted, thrown away. I want my Mother to live well into her nineties, happy and full of years. I’m not ready to let go.

I wish you could have met my Mother, back when her spark was compassionate and bright. But she is fading now, and most likely won’t remember you. My Mother, who loved my face. Who stooped low for me. Who fed me watermelon.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

190 thoughts on “Mother Love”

  3. What a beautiful lines you’ve written….right from your heart….felt every word….it’s very difficult to see how things change with time….how humans become as they age…..my mom passed away just after 1.5 yr from the day my father’s soul decided to leave the body….she became so lonely….even though she’s living with my younger brother….but she had lived most of her life with her husband….my father….I had to let her go when she was admitted at the hospital….I couldn’t see her go through the pain….she was living on medication….even though I wanted her to live longer….I had to let her go….for her own sake….I couldn’t be that greedy n needy….she did say goodbye in her own manner….I felt n i still do….that asking doctors to slowly turn off the machine was the spiritual choice…to let her free from the misery & pain…to give her peace….instead of artificial & dead life on chemicals….I just felt like sharing this with you….don’t know why….but something happened when I read your post, my dear friend ❤️✨

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  9. A good tribute to your Mother, for sure. My mother died away to young, before my 21st birthday and never got to meet my soon to be wife or my children as they came along. Life can seem unfair sometimes. Stay well.

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