Mum had myriad sides to her. The trick was to guess which side was going to appear. I never quite mastered it. | OPINION by Alison Reynolds
There was my mum who dived into waves with me and emerged laughing and shaking her tightly permed curls like a poodle. My mummy who made me twice-strained chicken broth when I was sick and would patiently spoon it into my mouth. And my mother who would sweep into the dressmaker, with its glistening satins and soft velvets, for her fitting as she was going to meet the Queen yet again.
Mum liked to make other people feel better, often at my expense. When my friend Deb complained that her nose was too big, Mum fondly stroked her own large beak: “Deb, you have a thoroughbred nose, just like mine.” There were the constant “where are you going and what time will you be home” questions, which is normal. Mum kept a list of hospitals next to the phone and methodically rang each one if I wasn’t home by midnight.If there was no report of my mangled, maimed body, she would venture out, searching, confident that a mother’s radar would help track down her child. It never worked, but Mum never gave up trying.
Mum was very good at making me look uncool. When she met one boyfriend for the first time, she was horrified that he’d wear thongs to a 21st. It wasn’t done. Before long my now-husband, all six feet five inches of him, found his size-10 feet crammed into my dad’s size-8 polished brown bowls shoes. Resistance was futile.But then my witty father died. Suddenly, my mother was cracking jokes, causing me to wonder if she’d been writing Dad’s material all those years.
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