It is hard to believe that this is the fourth Mother’s Day not bringing you a tiny bouquet of primroses. Even though you always described Mother’s Day as a ‘cod,’ the sight of the primroses always seemed to melt that view as you absorbed their colour and inhaled their yellow scent of spring.
You had the theory that mothers couldn’t be condensed into one day, especially if it entailed a big bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates and lunch at a hotel. That just wasn’t you! No, it wasn’t you.
Spring was you, though, and recently I’ve been thinking of ‘our’ Springtime cycles out to embrace it. You on your big black bicycle that stretched back to your youth and me eventually on the Blue Raleigh that became part of my life when I was eleven. How was it that you always knew where the first primroses were; the first lambs, bird’s nests that were invisible but that showed themselves to us ~ all twigs and softness and mothers and chicks.
‘Love is elastic,’ you said, explaining how mothers, both human and animal, could spread their love to all their babies. I had visions of every mother having a secret roll of white elastic hidden up her sleeve that she would hold and all her babies would tug. I felt that your elastic wasn’t the kind that lived in the sewing basket wrapped around a piece of cardboard. It was well-worn and made of things like rainbows, acorns, rhymes, gingerbread men, winding roads with little nooks where we would get off our bikes and eat tomato sandwiches ~ mine with the crusts off ~ and drink homemade lemonade from those blue willow ‘picnic’ cups that were chipped on the safe side.
You were right about Mother’s Day and even more right about love being elastic.
I’ll drop out to Primrose Road today but I promise I won’t pick any of the precious primroses. Yesterday, I gathered your bouquet from the ‘windfalls’ in the garden. Six elegant daffodils snapped by the weather, their cups overflowing with your elastic love.
SOCIAL BRIDGE ~ Jean Tubridy connecting with you from Ireland 