Stay Golden

Mother

No matter what my age, where my residence, or who may be loving me, I will always want my mother the most.

Sitting in my brother’s apartment in Palma the other day I had quite the sudden urge to write about my mother. I rushed home and whipped out the laptop almost immediately. It was quite the powerful force. She’s not dead or anything thank god, nor is she anywhere near death, thankfully, so what follows is a living obituary of sorts I suppose, for the one human that knows me the best, the one woman who has seen my life span from being a helpless infant to now, a Mammy that prepared me for life as best she could with whatever she had at the time. She, who taught me how to go out into the world, how to taste life- sweet and sour, how to laugh at myself, how to bear loss and pain and most of all how to remember one very important lesson:

To live honestly and without regret.

My mother is quite the blend of traits. Just as content to be sitting alone by the fire, reading, with a thimble (or more!) of reasonably- priced red wine from Supervalu or dancing the mambo in Colombia, alongside fine boats and yachts, her blonde bombshell of hair frizzing wild as her eyes in the humid Caribbean evening air. She is also known to sit and pray/meditate for us, her children, her family, her friends, my friends,  friends of friends, asking the powers that be to guide and keep everyone safe from harm. She has a tremendous ability to remember everyone in those prayers- an ability only surpassed by her even greater ability to whip up a roast dinner, two batches of scrumptious brown bread and a ‘lovely moist' coffee cake -all before midday. And she always has the home fires burning in the relaxed sanctuary of her sitting room. It’s my heaven- with colourful cushions.

I’m living abroad now, as is my brother. So only one of her three children live in Ireland. I suspect she would prefer it weren’t so as I think the older we get the greater the desire to have loved ones close to the nest, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled. And although the distance isn’t huge it still takes some getting used to. Homesickness is a very hard thing to describe without sounding like a little girl. But I sometimes miss my mother so much I feel like that little girl again. My heart gets an intense ache to see her and it knocks me for six. It will get easier I know. I realise I’m not in Australia or a million miles away and I can always come home very easily for the important things, like Christmas and weddings as it’s only a hop skip and a jump over the sea but…that’s not entirely the point, you see, because it’s the everyday stuff with her that I miss more than the big stuff. I sometimes long to be able to pop in to see her at home, unplanned, where we'd sit together sipping a coffee and having a chat before we'd both get on with our days or evenings or whatever the case may be. That’s what I yearn for. Just that. I miss hearing the doorbell of my old house ringing, knowing it’s her outside with her red raincoat and her red riding hood wicker basket on her elbow. I miss being able to meet her whenever I want. Calling in after work to unwind. She’s pretty much always ready for a chat, to be an ear for my worries and my doubts. Hers is a soul that laughs with mine, very easily, and very often. I miss having to leave the room to try and control the hysterical laughing, tears rolling down both our faces as wave after wave of giggling render us useless for minutes on end. I miss the way her special brand of hug massages my heart. There is nothing quite as comforting or reassuring as standing in your warm kitchen and getting a big bear hug from your Irish Mammy.

The bond between us is as deep and as bountiful as the ocean that now separates us and I will always want her the most. My Mammy, my best friend in the whole wide world.

Xxx