My Mother

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Saturday morning. For years a ritual was to ring my mother at 9 o clock on this day for a weekly catch-up, family gossip, rest home tales, national events and the fortunes of the All Blacks.


It is exactly a year since she died. I attach a photo. She gave it to me several years ago saying ‘something to remember me by’. It’s faded and the print has partially stuck to the back of the glass. Geoff has snapped it through the glass. It sits on my bedroom/study window sill. Backdrop – the camellia with the scarlet blooms. First one out yesterday. Overarching is the gaunt oak, devastated by last autumn’s storm.  Underneath, the promise of daphne.

My Ashburton niece, has sent by email photos of two of  Mum’s great grandchildren. The elder, Ryan, I saw with Mum in my last visit down south. He was about a month old. The younger, Taylor, was born last spring so Mum never saw her. But I find the continuity of the generations comforting. It is the nature of things.