“Mum needs a rest.” Those words echoed through our home every day after our son was born… and until the very end.
Each evening, returning from work, his first act was to wash his hands and stride straight to our son. Neither the aroma of supper nor his well-thumbed paper could pull him away. He’d lean over the crib, lift little Oliver into his arms—and in that moment, I fell in love with him all over again. With the man unafraid to be a father. The husband who remembered me.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he’d murmur, rocking our sleeping boy gently, humming a lullaby until his eyes fluttered shut.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he whispered in the dead of night, rising first to change nappies, handing Oliver to me for feeding, then settling him back with aching care.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he declared each evening, knotting an apron behind his back, coaxing spoonfuls of porridge into our stubborn toddler’s mouth as if it were a grand expedition.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he repeated, bundling a one-year-old Ollie into his coat for a walk, gifting me half an hour—just thirty precious minutes—to shower, to breathe.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he said, hoisting a growing boy onto his lap, spinning wild, off-the-cuff tales to distract him, to grant me silence.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he uttered over homework, guiding Oliver through sums he couldn’t grasp, patience woven into every word.
*”Mum needs a rest,”* he whispered quietly when Oliver, now a young man, crept in past curfew after prom, slipping past the kitchen without a sound.
Every time those words reached me, a wave of tenderness crashed over my heart. Tears blurred my vision—not from sorrow, but from a happiness so fierce I wished time would still.
Then came the third act of love. When *”Mum”* on his lips became *”Granny.”*
*”Granny needs a rest!”* He’d grin at our grandson, left with us for the weekend, fussing for his parents. And just like that, my husband’s lullaby floated anew—for a different child this time.
*”Granny needs a rest,”* he’d wink, gathering fishing tackle to whisk the boy and our grown son off to the lake.
*”Granny needs a rest,”* he’d murmur, pressing headphones over the lad’s ears to soften the tablet’s blare.
He never met his granddaughter. He left too soon, too quietly. The children moved me in with them—wouldn’t hear of me staying alone in that hollowed-out house.
Then, the first time I cradled tiny Sophie, I shattered. A sob tore loose. I swore I heard his voice behind me, as if he stood there still:
*”Granny needs a rest…”*
I turned. A foolish hope. Maybe—just maybe?
Later, when night draped the house and sleep neared, a whisper drifted from the living room. Our grown son Oliver’s voice:
*”Sleep now, love, sleep. Mum needs a rest…”*
I rose, eased the door open. There he was, swaying with his daughter, humming the same lullaby. The one his father once sang to him.
He’s gone. But *”Mum needs a rest”* lives on. In our son. In his children. In a memory even time won’t steal.
