A mother on paper
NS March 12th, 2010
She came home, draped in her grandfather’s arms, delivered like a bouquet of roses to my door. Her heavy lidded eyes saw me and her lips smiled, almost imperceptibly. I laid her on the sofa, removed her shoes and coat, smoothed her hair from her forehead and watched her forefinger rhythmically stroke her upper lip as she sucked her thumb.
I closed the door and my heart swelled, glad for her to be back in the warmth of my mother bear’s den. I sat down beside her. She put her head in my lap. Looking down at her face, I marvelled at her beauty and absolute perfection. I gazed for a long time at her ivory cheek, then the pores, then the blood and tissue and bones beneath. Beyond that, the cells, the tiny living particles of life that, together, made her. From my body and his. We made her.
That never stops blowing my mind.
I scoop her up, put her to bed (dress and all, at her insistence) and turn out the light. Downstairs, I begin to tidy up the things she brought home from school and her grandparents’ house. I see three yellow daffodils, tied together with iridescent ribbon, on top of two cards. One is white and depicts a human-like figure with blue construction paper legs, yellow arms, a green body and long red hair. Above it is scrawled ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ Inside, she has attempted to write her name, though only two of the letters are discernible as such. The figure on the card is smiling. My fears that she thinks of me as a brooding, cross, shouty demon are allayed for now.
The other card is red and circular and, in a teacher’s hand, tells me ‘I love my mum because…’ with her answer dictated and written below. It says:
“She is a very special mummy because she does everything by herself.”
I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad, whether to laugh or cry, so I do a bit of both. Hand over mouth, alone in the dining room, a silent, anguished, joyful tear slides down my cheek. I press the daffodils to my chest and look at the grinning face of my daughter’s imagining. At a time in my life when I feel that everything is changing and anything is possible, an assertion of independence is just what I needed to hear that. That someone has complete confidence in me, even when I don’t; that someone remembers my smiles when all I dwell on are my flaws — that’s more valuable than any gift from a shop she could ever give me.
