“No Mother’s day gifts, just call me, or send me a photo,” I said. Of course I’m regretting that now. I want the fuss. I created two lives. That stuff needs celebrating.
Today is Mother’s Day. I wake up to tea in bed, and a flurry of heart warming text messages from friends and family. But B & A haven’t called. Or texted. Or anything, yet. A few days ago I told them it’s no big deal.
D and I do yoga, whilst 30 dragonfly fly overhead. We follow a class designed on flexibility and release. It releases something because when we recline into sivasana I burst into tears. I miss my kids, I miss my own mum. I want to be connected to family, today of all days.
D places a lavender compress on my eyes and makes a delicious Mother’s Day brunch of poached eggs, avo toast and fresh berries. Much more expertly prepared than if the kids had made me breakfast, but we both know that I would give anything for them to be here.
I decide to spend some attention in my fur-child. The dog has sore patches on her lower back. I cut back her hair and apply topical soothing cream. She licks the air gratefully. Her fur is now patchy and not at all attractive. The upside of cancelled dog-therapy and a closed coffee shop is no one will be see the dog’s freshly shaved patches and ask me what’s wrong with my dog.
The teens finally make contact, B thanks me for being the best mum ever. A has spent the day sourcing old photos of her and I, and collaged them into a card. I love it and choke up a little. I miss them with my whole heart.
U.K. overtakes Italy in cases ( and has topped deaths for some time now)
I have a Mother’s Day video chat with friends, two young mums, who live nearby. One friend used to be a work colleague, but is a now a teacher, and is struggling with the balance of dedicating all her time to pupils online, and watching her own young children suffer “in her neglect”. Talk about the ridiculousness of this Covid situation that can make even the worthy feel guilty. My friend, the teacher, recounts a story where one of her online pupils calls her father onto the Zoom. The pupil’s father has just finished shaving, proudly brandishing his Bic razor. The teacher, whose own 6-year-old daughter happens to walk into her room, sees the razor on the screen, and exclaims “Oh we have a razor like that!”
“Cool” replies the pupil’s father, amused by the distraction.
“It’s my dads,” continues the teacher’s daughter, “my mom uses it to shave her vagina” My friend, whose last name is, coincidentally, Bush, has some reservations about the next parent-teacher meeting.
Happy Mother’s Day, good night
