Below is a post I wrote several years ago. Lad is eleven now.
It seems to have disappeared from the archives of this blog, despite carefully transferring all my old content over when I went self-hosted.
But I found it in my old blog’s dusty attic and thought I’d update and re-post it for Mothering Sunday today.
I’m also remembering my own mum.
She’s been gone eight years now. I still miss her every day.
I want to ask her stuff, things that you can only really ask your mum.
But it’s too late.
So go and ask your mum something now. Something you’d like to know – about how she feels, about your family, about her youth, about anything at all.
Before you forget.
Before it’s too late. ♥
Its amazing what turns up when you start shifting stuff.
In a box that was under the bed on the day I removed the bedroom carpet was something I’d forgotten I’d kept.
My now-eight-year-old son’s first baby clothes.
I was a late convert to motherhood. Perhaps my biological clock ran a little slow. But when it started ticking, it was loud.
I can’t remember where the babygro came from; probably a charity shop.
But I remember I bought the hat after heeding advice from my wise sister, then a mother of two, now of three.
“Have a cute hat ready,” she counselled. “It helps you bond if they’re ugly”.
When my boy finally arrived, after days of labour and a brutal forceps delivery, I was so out of it I didn’t actually recognise him as a baby. I’d forgotten why I was there on the operating table. My mind had absented itself, floating clean away from the hours of trauma.
Later, when I saw him properly, the evidence of that trauma was all over him.
Wingnut ears all bent and bruised from being wedged for so long. Big forceps marks on his cone-shaped head. Eyes swollen shut and nose like a boxer’s after ten rounds. A little gargoyle.
My little gargoyle.
I instantly loved him more fiercely than I thought it was possible to love anything. Ever.
The hat was too big. We didn’t need it.
But I’ve kept it anyway. ♥
My mother has been gone for over 30 years. I never had children, so I’ll never be someone who’s got something or someone to celebrate on Mother’s Day. Everyone out there who still has a mother, or who was lucky enough to be a mother themselves, treasure what you have….
However long ago it was, or however recent, losing your mother is a huge, life-defining thing. As is whether or not you have children; especially when the choice is not one you get to make yourself. Thinking of you and everyone else for whom today is difficult, for whatever reason x
You really touched my heart. I have lost my father 7 years ago and I still miss him every day. My mom lives in another continent. I miss her as well. She is almost eighty and I know we don’t have much time left to share. I am a mother of two boys. In a single sentence you put all the essence of motherhood. A love so fierce, a love you can never imagine you could feel for anyone, not even for yourself.
Happy Mother’s Day.xx
To be separated from loved ones is a feeling I understand well Angie. I hope you enjoy your day with your boys – and don’t forget to give your mum a call / Skype / FaceTime/ send an email telling her how much you love her. x
Such a moving post.
A beautiful post. I still find Mother’s Day really tough, 8 years on. So much I still want to tell her and show her and share with her. Mum’s are very precious indeed. I’m still pondering about a way to collect and present some memories about the happy times and the messy ones…. xxx
I didn’t know you had also lost your mum Zoë. It is hard. But as time passes I do find it easier to be thankful for having had my mum and dad, rather than just sad that I don’t have them any longer.