Mama is the mode.

You stay someone’s child until, they die…or you do. That’s it. No debate on this one. I am the mother of my children, now and forever, literally till the grave and death do us part, no matter that they beat me at arm wrestling, earn more than I do, are sharper, wiser, and more with-it-I am their earthly I am, and neither of us can change that, even when I see they are going grey before me.

Today was just a confirmation of that.

Of course for the past decade or so, they have been determinedly snipping away at that umbilical cord, at the bond that binds us, and it’s been good and right for them to separate their personas from mine – at my 50th a year or two ago…my third daughter confessed that here in her early twenties she was only now seeing me as a separate human being with my own life, feelings, opinions etc…

I need to say here, quite objectively of course that I have daughters who are brave and beautiful, who know how to muck in and out, dig trenches with their father, win beauty pageants on the side line and awards for their cleverness in between. But now that they are in the world, if not of the world, one would think now that they are complete women, an appendage called, mother and the act of mothering would be unnecessary, a nice to have, here and there, a sweet reminder of their childhood, like the rather scruffy teddy tucked away in their very upper cupboards but I find the “tots’, the “girls,” the “poppe” the “beauty boxes,” are surprisingly in need of encouragement, words of wisdom, an ear to listen to on love gained and lost and this wisdom of mine, which I give out sparingly and only on request, is hard-earned, gained from bitter and sometimes sweet experience on matters ranging from the heart to the head to the home, I’m even consulted with great earnestness on how to cure a beloved horse’s ulcers, and I’ve never even ridden one, so I remain the girls first port of call- phone a friend sort of thing- I suspect they think this old bird has lived long enough to know it all…but I am quick to say, I feel honoured and special and grateful that those ears that turned off at the stroke of twelve on their twelfth birthday are open to me…I value it greatly.

So, when people ask me about the empty nest, and what I spend my time on- my standard answer is, life-coaching my grown up children, daily, wherever they find themselves in the world.

But now and again like today, the girls just need an old fashioned mama, of their baby days, a motherly body, a kind soothing voice, loving hands and an attitude that all will be alright.

My happy-go-lucky, never-a-problem, daughter, suddenly collapsed in the streets today, not from the heat, hunger or thirst but from an excruciatingly, screw driver-in-your-guts, pain and it happened in a vreemde dorpie with no chemist, no doctors to be found and suddenly I had to take charge, take action, instinctively my mama-mode kicked in.

I looked at her grey, I’m not quite here, face, got her into the car and headed home, an hour’s drive away and I put my “voet-in-die-hoek,” pushing that engine to its limit (what’s the point of a sports car anyway?) with one hand on the wheel, one hand on her stomach, praying for her, cursing the slow traffic and speaking on the phone simultaneously, to get hold of a doctor and in all of this reassuring her it was going to be okay, mama was with her, it would all be fine.

It reminds me of my own father and mother-with every crisis during my married life they have been the first to call, the one’s I trust implicitly with my life and that of my loved ones, even to my father’s death, he would check if I had packed in a jersey, reprimanded me not sit on cold cement and to wear something on my feet in winter.

Mothering, (by fathers too,) caring, nurturing, never ends it seems to me, it is as part of me as breathing the air, there is an unseen cord that binds us to each other, that can never be severed, by age, distance, or even indifference.

And I do it gladly. It makes life so much more worth living.

(and yes, tot was doctored and sonared and injected, so that all is well)-
till next time.