Wachindy

7th July, 2014

Reflections on a Mother’s Day.

Well, another Mother’s Day has run its course. No doubt there are many happy mums out there – showered with flowers, chocolates and other presents. Breakfast in bed, a special lunch or dinner.

There were certainly lots of cars out on the road, full with mums, grandmums, new mums and children. All the best restaurants had been booked out some time ago.

My mother’s day passed well – although it was touch and go at certain moments, tensions between various members of the family bubbled to the surface but somehow a lid was clamped down at the last second..phew! Flowers, chocolates, lunch out and a roast dinner cooked and a visit to historic Farnborough house and gardens. Watching Eurovision finals eating a banana split!

I thought about my mum, gone now for 14 years but I never stop thinking about her. My mother-in-law too has been gone from this earth for many years, such a sweet loving woman, she would have been a fabulous grandma! My ‘other’ mums (for I had a few and loads of aunts too) – my Godmother, a wonderful person – she tried to teach me how to make pierogi – she was such a good friend to my mum – through thick and thin! My Godfather’s wife, Irka – such a happy person, full of good advice! How these wonderful women got through at times is hard to imagine. They didn’t have their mums around to ask advice or to seek solace. They managed to have babies and raise them successfully with only themselves and their friends to rely on and of course their hard-working husbands.

What about those mothers who could only hold their babes for a short time before laying them to rest for ever, those mums who didn’t even get that consolation, those would-be mothers who have tried unsuccessfully to have a family?

Mothers who have been separated from their children through war and poverty, some never knowing what became of their children, were they successful? Did they survive?

Mothers and their children share an invisible bond that is difficult to sever. Circumstance and events can cause huge upheavals and irreparable rifts but that intangible bond always remains, held together by the strength of love and belief, guilt or shame.

A couple of days ago I was listening to an ABC radio program about the fracturing or severing of familial ties by adult children. The guest was Nikki Gemmell. There were calls from mothers who had experienced this cutting off, quite often there didn’t seem to be a reason – just a cutting of the phone line, no more communication, no more Mother’s Days, no grandchildren to hug, confusion and sadness. Adult children rang in to explain, sometimes quite painfully, why they had decided to sever all ties. Some of the reasons were totally comprehensible – toxic relationships, physical and/or emotional abuse were often cited. Most of these adult children didn’t want their own children to know about these events or suffer in the same way.

I didn’t listen to the whole program. It is true there are some very bad people out there – and that doesn’t exclude bad adult children either! For the rest, no one is perfect, no one has all the answers. Relationships are a two-way street. How much we are prepared to give or take is our choice. Sometimes that choice is very limited.

When I compare my mother’s generation and mine and my children’s generation the outstanding difference is how much of ourselves – our love, our time our thoughts that we are willing to give without question, without wanting something in return. Each generation is becoming progressively more and more selfish I feel. Life isn’t simple, it is a fallacy that ‘in the good old days’ it was simple, I don’t believe that. Each generation has its own problems and how these are dealt with is ruled by the conventions of the day.

Well, that was an intense review of Mother’s Day 2014. Sadly the days of macaroni necklaces are long gone. I have to renege on my sentiments of the previous paragraph – life was simpler then I’m sure!