Tears… MOTHER
Mother is seventy-three. Small, stooped, with hands always busy and a gaze where weariness mingles with warmth. She hands me a bag and offers a guilty smile:
“Here are pears, Annabel. They’re not very pretty, but they’re ours. No chemicals. You like them, don’t you? Take them, please.”
I take them. Of course I take them. And the clotted cream too, because Mother always “accidentally leaves one jar” if she knows I’ll stop by.
“You’re not leaving straight away, are you? You’ll stay for supper once or twice…” she adds softly, almost hopefully.
I get into the car. Start the engine.
Off again, always rushing. Work, meetings, errands, cities, time zones, haste… Everything is important, everything urgent. I visit Mother only when everything else is done—between coffee with friends and a spa appointment, between a presentation and a flight.
I never arrive empty-handed—I bring her fish, cheese, sweets. Ask how she and Father are doing. Listen half-heartedly, interrupt, sometimes even smirk—what could possibly be happening in their lives at their age? I exist in parallel.
Mother will invariably say I’m “never dressed properly,” that I should wrap up my throat, that my cough is from “leaving my coat open,” and that I work too much. She’ll repeat that life is hard, and she understands, and it’s fine that I don’t visit often.
We live just twenty miles apart.
I call her nearly every day. She speaks slowly, in detail:
“Tomatoes are dearer at the market now. Your sister’s struggling with the farm, managing it alone. The parsley needs cutting again after the rain. And our cat, Whiskers, came home with a scratched eye—no idea where he’s been…”
I listen. Sometimes—just out of politeness.
It seems nothing important ever happens in her life.
I get cross when she complains of her heart but won’t see a doctor. What can I do? I’m not a physician! I tell her, “Mother, please, go! I don’t know what to give you!”
Then suddenly, in a different voice, quiet:
“Who else can I tell, my dear, if not you?”
And my fingers freeze on the phone.
Because it’s true. Because I’m her person. The only one who’s truly hers.
So I forget everything. I rush to her. Without warning. Without a plan. Just because I must.
And she—as if she’d been waiting. Already on the doorstep with a towel. Already frying fish. Father cuts into a melon, fetches 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. Loudly, heartily.
I’m cold. I bundle into Mother’s warm cardigan. She immediately turns on the oven:
“We’ll warm the kitchen, so you don’t freeze.”
And I’m small again. That girl who’s loved. Who’s fed supper. For whom the air is heated just because.
Everything tastes lovely. Everything is warm. Everything is real.
Mother, dearest, darling…
Just live.
Long. Very long.
Because I don’t know how to live without hearing your voice on the phone.
Because I don’t know how to live 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.
Mother.
Just be.
