Judy P's Tickle Trunk

Or Happy Mother’s Day

  It’s Mother’s Day, 2012, and I am sitting here on the deck in Milton wearing clothes I would never dare to wear in public, trying to tan feet and shoulders without sock lines or strap marks, eating raspberries, and watching the river glide gently by. I’m alone right now but there is a promise of victuals prepared by my children in Prospect later this evening. Earlier I took a bike ride across the trestle bridge and through Liverpool looking for manifestations of Mother’s Day.

Taking the bling for a spin.

Taking one’s wife for a sunny Sunday morning drive seemed to be the thing. I saw one smiling white-haired couple cruising at 50 km per hour in a burgundy car resplendent with fins and chrome and white vinyl and so wide it covered the yellow line. Another fellow was preparing his motorcycle for a Sunday cruise while his wife stood posing in her black leather jacket and chaps. Her hands were deep in her pockets, one knee slightly bent, her hips thrust to one side and her head cocked in the same direction and angled slightly upward. I know she felt nineteen in her mind but her medium-brown dyed tightly permed hair and her XXL hips put her closer to late middle age. Even though she was back on to the road watching the river I could sense her happiness. I saw two young women sitting on the top step outside an upstairs flat; one smiling as, gesticulating with her cigarette, she wished a happy mother’s day into the cell phone pressed to her ear. Another family with two young children sat on lawn chairs by the landwash, drinking coffee and relaxing. Through a roadside window I saw a fresh colourful bouquet on a table.

But it is not smiles and flowers for everyone today. I think of the mother of my friend’s fifteen year old nephew whose son was killed suddenly in the early hours of Saturday morning and how now, every year when the advertisements for Mother’s Day dinners and gifts proliferate, the grief for her lost son will heighten. I am saddened for the mother duck who paddled by yesterday with her seven bumbling ducklings and then again this morning with but five. I fear for the robin who rebuilt her nest in the same shrub next to the deck rail where she lost her eggs to a raccoon last year. But that racoon was nourished and able to nurse her own babies and so the circle of life goes on.

So my advice to you today is be fully present and enjoy the moment, as I am right now; feeling the warm sun on my bare arms, hearing the songs of a dozen different birds and thinking of how lucky I am to love and be loved. Happy Mother’s Day.

(c) Judy Parsons 2012