Tears… MUM
Mum is seventy-three. Small, stooped, her hands always busy, her gaze a mix of weariness and warmth. She hands me a bag and smiles apologetically:
“Here are some pears, Annie. They’re not the prettiest, but they’re homegrown. No chemicals. You like them, don’t you? Take them, please.”
I take them. Of course I do. And the clotted cream too, because Mum always “accidentally leaves an extra pot” when she knows I’ll stop by.
“You’re not leaving right away, are you? You’ll stay for dinner at least once or twice…” she adds softly, almost hopefully.
I get into the car. Start the engine.
Off I go again—always rushing. Work, meetings, errands, cities, time zones, chaos… Everything’s urgent, everything’s important. I visit Mum only when everything else is done—between coffee with friends and a spa appointment, between a business pitch and a flight.
I never arrive empty-handed—I bring her fish, cheese, chocolates. I ask how she and Dad are. I half-listen, interrupt, sometimes even scoff—what could possibly be happening at their age? I’m living in another world.
Mum will scold me for “never dressing warmly enough,” remind me to wrap up my throat, blame my cough on my “open coat,” and tell me I work too much. She’ll say life is hard, that she understands, that it’s fine if I don’t visit often.
And yet—we live just twenty-five miles apart.
I call her almost every day. She speaks slowly, in detail:
“Tomatoes went up at the market. Your sister’s struggling on the farm, doing everything alone. The parsley needed cutting again after the rain. And our cat, Whiskers, came home with a scratched eye—who knows where he’s been…”
I listen. Sometimes just to be polite.
I think nothing important ever happens in her life.
I get annoyed when she complains about her heart but refuses to see a doctor. What can I do? I’m not a physician! I snap, “Mum, please, just go! I don’t know what medicine to tell you to take!”
Then she says, suddenly different, quiet:
“Who else can I talk to, love, if not you?”
My fingers freeze on the phone.
Because it’s true. Because I’m hers. The only one who really belongs to her.
And just like that, I drop everything. I race to her. No warning. No plan. Just because I must.
She’s waiting. Already at the door with a towel. Already frying fish. Dad’s slicing a melon, uncorking a bottle of homemade cider:
“Fresh. Just finished fermenting,” he says proudly.
I refuse—I’m driving. He nods, pours himself a glass. We laugh. Loud, unguarded.
I’m shivering. I wrap myself in Mum’s thick cardigan. She rushes to turn on the oven:
“We’ll warm the kitchen up, so you’re not cold.”
And I’m little again. The girl who’s safe. Who’s loved. Whose dinner is waiting. Whose mother heats the room just for her.
Everything tastes better here. Everything’s warm. Everything’s real.
Mum, my darling, my heart…
Just keep living.
A long, long time.
Because I don’t know how to live without hearing your voice on the phone.
Because I don’t know how to exist without your kitchen, where you always make sure I’m warm.
Because no matter what happens in the world—I need an anchor. And that anchor has always been you.
Mum.
Just be there.
