My mother gave me a significant gift last Tuesday, 12 days before Christmas.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She’d received a random card I sent. It featured a black dachshund… my nanna, her mum, won many trophies for breeding top-class dachshund. Mum’s gift wasn’t a silky-smooth dachshund.
She left a message on my phone “no need to call back floss, but your card made me cry and brought some good to a bad morning”.
No, mum’s heartfelt voicemail wasn’t her gift either.
To put mum and me, her only child, into context, during my 30s I regularly dyed my hair shades of brilliant orange/red or a gothic, China blue/black as symbols of my freedom of choice…to try and irritate the bejesus out of her elegant, Italian-heeled pinkness.
Of course, my hair-colour rebellion was never mentioned; but her constant references to my stature: “What size did you say?” are a reflection of her ‘50s, Mad Men, pre-bra burning-feminist era and they stung. (I can see you nodding.)
We’ve agreed to disagree on nearly everything, from how I dress (lots of black versus pink and white) to how I vote (far left versus eclectic). For a short while she strayed a little bit far right (possibly understandable at 88 with the rapidly changing face of Australia).
Here we are at 88 and 59. She’s as sharp as a tack, caring for our beautiful Eric, whose memory is randomly horrific with only the odd glimmer of his very cute, wiley Scottish sense of humour.
Mum says it’s not fair, and she’s right. She’s loved mightily – twice - and now the second love of her life, Eric, is facing the same horrific challenges as my gorgeous dad, Ron, who died too young, at 58.
“You wouldn’t think you could marry two men who ended up with memory problems,” she said.
“He’s such a good man. It’s not fair. I can’t understand why people stop talking to somebody once their memory ‘goes’.”
She’s right. Obviously these men have been the world to us but why can’t/won’t people talk to someone whose memory’s faded or gone altogether?
I always wanted you to live your own life.
No, insight wasn’t mum’s gift.
During the past three years we’ve both softened to a more honest place with less conflict and a more simple, without burden, kind of love. We are humble together and not competitors.
The gift?
I came home from work on Tuesday afternoon, tired and cranky. My work-Wednesday loomed as overwhelming and I felt almost too weary to return mum’s call.
Her phone rang for ages before she picked up.
Tuesday morning, Eric had lost his glasses, she said, and her back was agony, and then the dachshund card arrived.
“It made me cry,” she said.
Then I started to have a tissue moment.
“I feel like I’ve let you down living so far away,” I said.
Quick as a flash, came her gift.
“I’m a straight talker,” she said.
“Don’t you dare think you’ve ever let me down. If you had (let me down) I would have said so.”
For many of us, Christmas is a time of wishing family was closer. I won’t be flying to Sydney to be with mum and Eric this year; we’re headed to Melbourne to be with one of our daughters before she and her partner fly to New Zealand to visit his family.
Our son will spend Christmas in Detroit and our other daughter will take a road trip that will lead her to us in the New Year.
“I always wanted you to live your own life,” she said.
Now, that’s a whole other gift.