By Sally Saint
For Mother’s Day this year, my seven-year-old son was very clear about what he wanted to get for me. He had already made a card in school and he was a very focused child when he went shopping with his father to get my gift. As a single parent and having been so for five years, Mother’s Day would symbolise more how his father and myself were linking, if it was a rough time it would show on this day. Now as all things do it has settled and healed.
What did I get? A beautiful bunch of flowers that my child said were the only ones like it there and the brightest, they had glitter on them and although they were real flowers they also had some brightly dyed individuals in the arrangement. It was bright, colourful and I loved them because he chose them. They also lasted for weeks.
My mother was all the more precious this year, as last year she was diagnosed with cancer, had an operation, radiotherapy, and recovered. It was an intense journey and it taught all of us a lot. My mother is 83 and of ill health anyway so she is truly remarkable. This Mother’s Day I was appreciative and emotional. Mothers have this feel about them, where you take them for granted and you automatically think they will always be there. It takes a sharp shock sometimes to make you see what you have got.
When I am ill, even though I am 45, I still want my mum. We have had an intense relationship; I developed ME when I was 16 and became almost a child again, so ill that I was dependent on her for nearly everything. In turn, over the years I cared for her when she had operations on her knees and hip, due to arthritis, and helped her care for my father when he became ill. I have also felt this deep need to protect my mum and my heart would pull so hard to her. She has had some very hard life lessons and I in turn have walked many of them also.
I was driving today in my car and in a queue of traffic at some lights everything stopped. The lights said green and I couldn’t for the life of me see what was stopping it all. Neither could the pile of cars in front and behind of me. A car further in front had caused the hold up. For me it highlighted the effect those in front of us have on our paths. One person’s decision affects others. Even when we can’t see what happened, the slip stream is there, and we follow.
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