The Magic letter – M
Mothers are “others” with an M. That extra letter is the whole story.
Remove the M from Mother and what do you have? Other. Just… someone else. A stranger. A bystander. Someone who isn’t closely connected. Add that magical, magnetic, magnificent letter to the front. Suddenly, you have the one person who matters most – a biological marvel, sometimes found in a dressing gown, who gives your life meaning simply by being there.
When the world fell apart, she held it together with string, cellotape, band-aids and hugs. She probably didn’t talk about it much – that generation didn’t. She simply got on with it: fed people, kept the lights on, made it all look entirely unremarkable – quietly operating in the background, without fanfare. There were no Facebook support groups, no wellness retreats in yoga pants, just reliably, steadfastly there.
M is for Mystic, Mind reader
She knows. She always knows. You haven’t said a word. You’ve arranged your face into what you’re fairly certain is a perfectly normal expression. She looks at you for approximately one second and says, “What’s wrong?”
She knew about the broken vase in 1997. She knew who shaved the cat.
She honed this ability over years of watching you try – and spectacularly fail – to hide things. Sometimes, she said nothing at all; because love is strategic silence and the perfectly timed raised eyebrow.
M is for Multitasker, Master chef
She packed approximately 2,000 school lunches. She sat through school plays in which you were Third cloud from the left and clapped like you’d swept the Oscars. She could open a fridge containing a sad carrot, half an onion, and the ghost of last Tuesday’s dinner – and produce something that made you feel everything would be okay.
There were the lifts, the dinners, the middle-of-the-night worrying she never mentioned. The pretending not to worry while being, in fact, absolutely terrified – thousand small things, a thousand unremarkable miracles.
M is for Motivator, Manager, Miracle worker, Mama bear
She told you that you could – when everyone else, including, honestly, yourself, wasn’t entirely sure. She was your logistics department, your biggest critic, and your fiercest defender, sometimes within the same sentence.
And when the world came at you with teeth bared, she became a force of nature in heels – a ferocious Mama bear capable of extraordinary lengths and several very strongly-worded conversations – all in your defence.
So yes, this Mother’s Day- if she is alive, buy the flowers. Get the chocolates. Find the card with the angels and the vaguely poetic sentiment. But also tell her – in actual words – that she matters. If she is gone now – remember and recapture what she meant to you.
She was never just an Other.
She was the M that made everything make sense.
And you – all of you – are her masterpiece.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the marvellous matriarchs.
