Mother

I let my book drop from my hand to my lap: I’m too tired to read. Instead, I let my thoughts wander lazily around my mind. My eyes roam around the room. And then they stop.

“Where did that photo come from?” I ask.

My husband Andy doesn’t reply. Beneath his headphones, he cannot hear.

Across the room is a photo of me and Andy and six of our children. Thomas is in my arms. He’s wearing a white baptismal gown with a bonnet upon his head. The last time I saw that photo was on the evening of Thomas’ birthday in November last year.

On that day, I’d planned to go to the cemetery. When we got up in the morning, I’d expected Andy to say, “What time would you like to go? Have we got some flowers? Shall we take a picnic?” But he hadn’t. As the hours crept by, I realised that Andy had forgotten what day it was.

Last year, I forgot our wedding anniversary. I forgot it the year before as well. Both times, Andy had laughed. “It’s not important,” he had said. “It’s the love that matters, not the date.”

But weddings and deaths are not the same.

Mid-afternoon, with tears threatening to stream down my face, I leashed a dog and left the house. When the door crashed shut behind me, Andy looked up and said to our kids, “What’s wrong with Mum?”

“It’s Thomas’ birthday.”

I marched at a furious pace through the bush, down a steep track and back up again, trying to escape the pain within me. How could Andy have forgotten?

As I came back through the front door, Andy smiled and asked, “Shall we go to the cemetery?” But it was too late.

“I just wanted you to remember,” I cried.

Each year, on November 9, time falls away, and I follow a small white coffin to a yawning grave.

I walk alone.

Last year, I thought: Surely it’s time to move on? Like everyone else, I can forget.

So I retrieved all our son’s things from around the house and put them away.

But now one of Thomas’ photos is back. I don’t know how, but there it is on the bookshelf in its old place.

Andy removes his headphones, and I ask my question again: “Where did that photo come from?” I point. “The one that was taken at the funeral home.”

“Hasn’t it always been there? Isn’t that where it belongs?”

“But I took it away. And now it’s back.”

Andy shrugs. It’s no big deal. But it is for me. My heart is all tied up in knots.

I look at Thomas. Even though I hid all the evidence, I didn’t forget him. I never could.

Then I see: Andy will never forget as well. He loves too. He just doesn’t have to bear the painful weight of love like me.

And then, for the first time ever, I think: that’s okay. This is the way it’s meant to be. The pain belongs to me. I am a mother.

Andy said, “It’s the love that matters, not the date.”

But I have a mother’s heart with grief attached. It sits there in its place. It quietly counts the months, the weeks. It always knows the date.

Photo by Veit Hammer on Unsplash