My mother

My mother is a bit of a legend.

She’s generous.

She’s funny.

She laughs a lot.

She makes you feel as if you are the only one who is important in her life, though you know she makes everyone in her orbit feel this way. You know this because your childhood home was always filled with people, relatives and friends and random strangers too. You know this because when she had her stroke five years ago, people spilled out of her hospital room waiting to see her each day. Her phone still rings constantly, and people check in on her all the time.

Mum has inspired me to write a few stories of late. I’m aware that she is getting older, that her body and her mind are not what they used to be. While I know this is how nature works, and that time spares no one, it fills me with sadness. And sadness makes me write.

I know Mum feels sad about getting older too, especially since her stroke robbed her of her words. It’s meant that she is unable to say what she wants to say in the same way that she once could. For such a social being as Mum, words are the gold with which she makes her everyday transactions, connecting with people, reassuring them, offering earthy wisdom. She talks about the stroke often, this terrible thing that happened to her.

But most of the time, she is stoic, philosophical. She doesn’t avoid the topic of death. She explains she is not really worried about it. What pre-occupies her is becoming dependant as she ages, and about her loved ones having to care for her, but she doesn’t worry about dying. As usual, her concerns are for others, not herself.

‘I’ve lived a good life,’ she often says. ‘Now, let me show you the dress I want you to bury me in…’

And despite ourselves, we laugh. My mother, who is a bit of legend, always makes me laugh.

Some recent articles about Mum on SBS Voices

Going through my parent’s possessions reminded me of the sacrifices they made

Cooking for my mother now that she can no longer do it for herself

Comments

[Erica]

Beautiful piece. Mothers bring out the best in us.

[Carla]

Hi Spiri,
Apologies for contacting you this way- I don’t have the email app that you use so can’t get to you via email! I was hoping you might be able to help me- I read your book Afternoons in Ithaka (on kindle) whilst travelling in Greece last year (as a fellow Melbournian with Greek background). It was such a beautiful story and took me back to stories of all four of my grandparents growing up in Greece and moving to Australia for a better life. I would love to gift a hard copy of your book to my mum as I know it will resonate with her strongly and make her so happy to read a similar story to her own. My only issue is that I can’t seem to track it down anywhere online- do you have any suggestions on how I could get it? Absolutely not chasing a free copy, would love to purchase and support your work. Please let me know if you could be of help! Kindest, Carla