Another golden-eyed morning in the countryside, rinsing the sticky bloom off an armful of ripe plums. Last night I was woken at midnight by my dogs wanting to go out and play in the moonlight. Garden brighter than day, ablaze with blue-white light.
News headlines tell me that more than 1 000 people were killed on South African roads in December. Drunken driving, speeding, reckless driving, drunken driving.
A friend aged 62 stricken by the death of her elderly mother at 89. She says she feels again like a small girl reaching out instinctively for the clasp of her mother’s hand, unsure what to do without that hand squeezing back. Orphaned. From Sandra Cisneros in Guernica:
I think one of the great primordial fears we have once we become conscious of our aloneness as children is the fear of losing our mother. We have that from the moment we realize we can lose her just in the supermarket. As a child, it was more terrifying than arithmetic. When I lost my father, I thought I learned about grief and transition. However, nobody tells you what it’s like to lose your mother. They don’t tell you that you’re going to feel like an orphan at whatever age you are as an adult. We tend to think of orphans as being the protagonists of stories we read as kids, and yet here you are: you’re an adult, you’re supposed to manage, you’re supposed to go on with your life, and you feel like a lost child.
All through December I have been gritting my teeth listening to bouncy jungles and Christmas carols followed by advertisements. Hating tunes I once loved. But now all the fuss is over, I feel able to share one of the most haunting versions of this old beauty:
Ah…so true. In spite of the love/hate relationship I had with my mother…when she died (I was 27) it was horrific. Good, bad or indefferent–she’s the only one you ever get. And for the first time in my life, I was thrown for a loop by the reality of not ever seeing her again.
Traumatic stuff.
I am glad to say goodbye to the holidays. And especially to not have to hear any more Xmas music. They get really stupid with it here in the states, and you can’t hardly turn on ANY station thyat isn’t playing wall-to-wall carols. YUCK.
I did catch myself singing Stille Nacht a few times….something I learned in the 9th grade, in my first year of German. Surprised me. lol
Annie, that bond with our mothers is always there.
Carols and those old wassailing tunes are extremely beautiful, but commercialised into travesty. Stille Nacht is so lovely, if heard in another context or language
I walked the dogs and when we turned I could see the moon was setting in the west, as big as a dinner plate. I laughed and shouted Look At That.
Obediently, they lifted their heads and looked around.
Nothing like sharing a moon!
The song did sound haunted.
When my mom died I was 19. I had no idea what I was feeling, and I was drinking away whatever it was. It took me years and other losses to realize that it was grief. We were not close, but she was my mother.
I worry about my daughters when I am gone. One of them will be devastated. The other one has better coping skills. Funny I don’t worry about my son. I probably should.
I’ve read that often sons do handle the loss of mothers very badly — but so do daughters, at any age. I also drank away the feelings around my mother’s tragic death and it remained unresolved for many years.
The bond with grandchildren too — they will always remember their grandmothers from childhood
I was astonished to learn how deeply the tentacles of motherhood are imbedded in who I am when my mother passed away. I was 46 – tried my best to be awake/aware of all aspects of the loss of her and taught me the one last lesson my mother offered – release.
Eva Cassidy singing Silent Night is another worth listening to.
Yes, I miss my mother. I believe though that I was better prepared for her death at an advanced age than I was for the sudden death of my father. But the feeling of being an orphan has persisted. I don’t think that anything can replace the love that one receives from parents.
Sam Phillips is nice to listen to