Mother
She was forty when she was widowed; her dark hair soon greyed, and then she was sixty.
She had four children, of whom all but one was grown. They left the home, one by one, till it was only her left, in the house that suddenly seemed too big after all those years. She would sit in a corner of the house, in her rocking chair, depending on the trickles of sunlight through the grilled windows to see. While she rocked, she murmured incessantly, her eyes glazed with boredom and from the reminiscing of the past.
Maybe, it was because she simply had nothing to do, she would walk in and out of her children’s bedrooms, dusting the shelves and repacking the books they hadn’t bothered to bring with them. She even changed the bed sheets, as though holding a simple prayer under her breath that they might come back one day to stay.
They sent money every month, tons of them, a subtle reminder of why they couldn’t be back more often to visit. They were too busy, they claimed piteously over the phone, and she said that she understood. She was proud of them, smiling softly to herself as she put the receiver down, but her heart was sighing. When she was young and full of dreams, her children had been her inspiration and her window to hopes of a beautiful future. They had climbed onto her lap after she told them stories after stories, well after bedtime. They had whispered in her ear that, mummy, when I grow up, I’m going to make a lot of money for you, so that you can be happy. She had smiled, and said yes, please do. But now, it almost seemed like an excuse that they were doing all these for her.
She found out that, when she grew old and grey, the wads of notes were just meaningless pieces of paper stashed under her bed. So she sat in her rocking chair, rocking back and forth, merely to find something to do- out of embarrassment though no one was watching- and wondered if everything had been worth it.
Sometimes they came back to visit, possibly because of their nagging conscience, or to make an effort to be filial children. She busied herself in the kitchen, preparing favourite dishes of each of her children, her heart singing. But she never showed it. She brought the food out, laid them on the table, and contented herself by listening to their conversations, as though their voices could fill her soul up with life. When they left, one by one, she felt the same sour feeling at her nose-bridge, as though they were about to leave forever, and the tip of her nose grew pink as she tried not to cry.
How long was forever?
In the past, she had been amazed when her little children pointed out the airplanes out of encyclopedias, telling her that she could travel the world in less than a day. She was dumbstruck, and secretly didn’t quite believe it. It’d take me forever to travel the world, she thought.
Now she knew, travelling the world took less than a day, but for her children living a twenty minute drive away to visit, that was forever.
The walls of the house were grey with age, and slowly, she got up from her rocking chair, tracing her fingers along the bits of grey and yellow, trying to remember the memories behind each stain. She limped painfully, leaning heavily against the walls which once echoed laughter and love, and hobbled slowly to her room.
She closed the windows so that no light could enter, and then lay down on her bed. With the blankets drawn to her chin, a wave of drowsiness swept across her, and she closed her eyelids that were heavy with regret, never opening them again.
