Just below the surface of our adult facades, there is a little girl or a little boy that wants mummy’s embrace more than anything else in the world. – R. Scott Sullender
Three years ago, my family, my siblings and I were thrown into mourning when our dear mother passed away suddenly.
Her period of illness lasted for just five days. It was as if she was snatched from us. It left a gaping void in our lives up until today. Three days before Christmas in 2008, her mortal remains were laid to rest. I said then and I still believe it now that Shakespeare lied when he said: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”
Trust me, Mum was not a player; she was the play, she was the set, she was everything!
Since her passing, life has not been the same.
It is as if the sun on a hot day has just turned cold and dark. It is as if the light at full moon has suddenly gone out. I go to the house she made a home with her ever present warmth and it is definitely not the same.
I stand on the hooded step and knock and wait for her answer that filled my ear with joy but it comes no more. I call her number but the answer reveals the haunting fact that she’s not there anymore.
After three years, we still don’t understand why she left us so abruptly and so soon. But mothers never die. “Mothers don’t leave like others do, they always stay with you; whether they be good or bad, they are forever something that you have.”
Every day, we wish we could reconnect with mother’s love. Occasions like birthdays, picnics and family gatherings which were previously joyous, have now become lonely landmarks painted with memories that bring us as close as we can get to reliving the wonderful life she shared.
The attraction of these events has lost its lure and nothing is the same anymore.
Volumes have been written about mothers and their love. If it were all assembled in one place, it would fill the world’s continents and cause a sea level rise.
Washington Irving says: “Mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavours by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
Helen Steiner Rice captures it accurately when she says: “A mother’s love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking.”
No doubt a woman like Gloria Vanderbilt could say: “And it came to me, and I knew what I had to have before my soul would rest. I wanted to belong – to belong to my mother. And in return – I wanted my mother to belong to me.”
But as we remember her, we pause because she would not have wished for us to reduce our lives to a lingering lament, a sour memory to haunt us daily into everlasting life. Instead, mothers wish that the time they spend with us would season our lives when they are gone; if at all they ever go!
But her death, though tragic, was not a tragedy. Though it hurts and pains, her passing is not an inflamed sore that will continue to ooze and fester throughout our lives. Her death and the memories it evokes will become a rich reserve of the heights beyond which a mother’s love can transcend.
Mothers who loved and cared as she loved; those whose humanity flows in spite of adversity and being pitted against all odds, hold a special place in the courts of heaven and are forever rewarded for their gifts to mankind.
Mother dear! It’s Christmas time. Oh, how I remember the times we shared both far and near.
The inestimable warmth that exuded from your presence, your voice and your warm embrace, the care you shared as you gave of yourself unselfishly and the ultimate sacrifice you paid with your passing.
It is the quality of the life you led that will empower us with every drink of sorrel, every slice of cake on which we munch, every meal we will consume will be a celebration of your life, your legacy bequeathed.
To those of you whose “mother dear” is still within the grasp of your embrace, shower her now with all the love you can. Let her know how much you appreciate and adore her, for when the last dregs of life take flight and eyes and ears are closed, your sentiments “will be empty gongs full of sound and fury signifying nothing”.
As for right now, love her all you can. So like mine, your mother will live on in our memory; for mothers never die!
Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education, and social commentator. email [email protected]
