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”

  2. Hugs, Tony! I had a very different mother, and I can’t imagine these feelings, but I’m glad you have them; better to suffer with healthy feelings as the abrasive texture of illness rubs against it than not to have good and wholesome feelings and history.

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

  4. I suppose it all makes sense now, I never read into your stories/posts and thought about your age, and oddly, your story is a near mirror to mine, not only is her grey on the outside, it seems all her colors are fading away these days, and rapidly, in front of my eyes… and the helplessness of it, knowing she raised you up from a no nothing pup to the all knowing for now us of now… and the future that becomes.

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to noveldalliances Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.