In the beautiful scars of you…
I never forget
My dear friends, I am glad to see you here on this day, despite its lateness.
Since 1997, I have written a few words on the fifth day of May. I send them as I write, in gentle whisperings, out into the ether in the hope that they find my mother. This year, she would have been 80 years old.
She was a kindness that deserved to grow old, to be cared for the way she cared for half the world.
(I tried very hard to publish this yesterday but between the thunder and lightening, the disconnections and the bailing out when the storm not only knocked at the door but invited itself in, Mother Nature was evidently not in agreement; I’m sure she had good reason)
In the beautiful scars of you.
I feel you here in this house you never knew - your love of life left scars on me that will not heal. I tried to hide them, to not accept their instinctive marks but in that double porcelain sink, crackled and stained by your motherly work, beetroot and blackberries etched scars on your hands. How often did your hands hold mine…
In the dandelion wine you left the scars of your wishes. To the repairs on our jeans, in our shirts and our socks, you left scars in the stitches, frayed now at the edges but still they hold. I think you knew they would never fall out and when you packed our lunchboxes each day, filled them with all we loved - so much more than school dinners - were the scattered scars of your kisses.
A momentary glance at my face, just a glimpse in passing, it passes, passed on, the bi-scar of time - yours on mine. Between the lines of your letters (I have kept every one) were the scars of retelling ‘it’s a beautiful life’ and I never understood, how, did you never complain of the tedious monotony.
I know now, of course, this story on repeat. I know those thoughts you wore in the shape of your face, the unspoken scars, the ones you kept hidden, the ones that were deeper than joy or sadness, the ones that were every painful else. But, the beautiful scars born from the complicity of love, I hold all them all stitched in my heart, the scars on my own hands, now in credence, the sweetest memory of yours.
05/05/2024 WITH LOVE UNTIL…
“Most of human behavior and its relationship to DNA is still undiscovered territory. We know what genes make rats afraid of eagles, and we know why birds fly south in the winter, but the complexities of human nature are still a mystery to science.”
― Emily Suvada - from This Mortal Coil
For years I tried to run from everything my beautiful mother was, I didn’t want the same life and yet, it is everything I have without even noticing the journey and, just like her, I love life.
I never stop noticing she’s gone.
If you can, send a message to your mum, right now, tell her how you love her.
Below are two just two pieces (there are so many more) that I have read, been rendered speechless with awe by and had to share with you:
A Gathering at the Station by
is a beautifully gentle story about death and reconnection, a question most of us have asked ourselves. wrote also about his mother, a moving piece drawn from good and bad times that left deep wounds and lasting memories.
This is so poignant and beautiful. Susie, and such a blessing.
My mother had such deep scars from her violent, abused childhood that she was unable to pass on love. She threw me out when I finished school, didn't attend my wedding (aged 18) and then briefly re-netered my life in a chaotic and destricutive way -- she told me to abort my third pregnancy (planned and wanted) because I had enough children already, would only buy gifts for my oldest (a son) becasue 'girls are worthless' (Rowan is now trans fem!:)) and finally broke all ties with me and her granchildren when the fourth was about 18 months old, because I asked to discuss ground rules about how we treat children with respect in my home.
I haven't seen her for almost 29 years except for a weird chance sighting from a train platform when I was returning from visiting a dying friend.
I hope my children could write about me with a fraction of the love you and your mother had and which lives on in you always. It's such a profound gift to the world -- and I love this: "For years I tried to run from everything my beautiful mother was, I didn’t want the same life and yet, it is everything I have without even noticing the journey and, just like her, I love life."
To find that simplicity and love are everything.
Thank you.
I cannot…I’m…words….will never come close to the feeling this left in me. Susie, the scars of your mother’s love, I see them now reaching like the branches of an ancient tree, beetroot stained, mending and all-knowing, reaching outwards and then back into your own exquisitely scarred existence. I zoomed in on that dear photo and then again on how she gently held you with such love. Thank you for this unforgettable offering Susie. I so want to believe she heard your words as you typed them. ❤️