My kind of Mother

I woke up to her yesterday... this morning she was sitting at the end of the bed. I waited for her to speak. She didn't, she just smiled and she was gone. The silence was deafening, the smell of soda bread was over powering and when I finally persuaded myself she was never really there I got out of bed and realised my hand was full of flour... the hand that had reached out to touch hers....

I guess a mother never leaves you. She turns up at the strangest times, usually when I'm burning something that I attempted to cook. I see her then.. shaking her head and wiping her hands on her apron, wondering where she went wrong with her youngest child.

I see her most when I'm missing my kids the most. She arrives and wears that smile. You know the one, the smile that says she was me and I was the kid she misses and she understands. And then I cry and her smile changes and the corner of her apron gently brushes beneath my cheek and that tear becomes an ocean that she sweeps away before the tide drowns me. 

And I'm 7 and I can't stand her because she won't let me do everything I want to do and then I'm 7 and a half and it's nearly Christmas and Santa isn't coming to me because I'm a loser and all I want is her to tell me I'm not and he'll arrive and leave me that damned doll I crave.

And then I'm 7 again and I love her and santa isn't important coz I'm buried in her apron and she smells like safe....

And safe is the only scent you will ever need to get through life.

Safe is Mother. And mother is everything. And I miss her. She was always my kind of Santa anyway 

Valerie Masters