Chapter 19
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
ROBERT brOWNING
This recent chapter of the past fades like a dream, then merges with the whiteness around me, as I remind myself where I am. In the hospital; in Crete. I need to wake up and open my eyes.
I will my eyelids to move, my lips to form a word. A sense of panic returning. It’s as if I’ve become removed from myself. My body is inert; however hard I try, nothing happens.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but in this strange in-between place in which I find myself, I become aware of the boys around me.
Then their voices reach me. Robbie’s, trying not to sound anxious; Alex, obviously concerned, love swelling in my heart as I realise this isn’t a dream. That they are here.
‘We love you, Mum,’ I think I hear one of them say.
‘You’re going to be OK.’
Warmth wells up inside me. But it’s followed by fear, too, a tumbling ocean of it. What if I’m not OK? I can’t bear that when they should be living their carefree lives at uni, they have to see me like this.
I desperately try again to form the words.
I love you both, so much. To the ends of the earth. Further…
But as before, nothing happens.
The boys know I love them, though. Being a mother has been my proudest achievement.
OK, so I didn’t do so well on the marriage front.
But where the twins are concerned, I can honestly say I’ve done my best to give them a sense of being firmly rooted while letting their wings unfurl.
I’ve loved them in bucket loads. Fed them plenty of home-cooked food, too.
And I mean plenty of it. I must have cooked thousands of cakes over the years, millions of roast potatoes, not to mention snacks – if you’ve had a teenaged son, you know how hungry they get, how much shopping is required to keep the hangry gremlins at bay.
Still so much lies ahead… I’ve imagined their graduations, my pride knowing no bounds.
Seeing them travelling the world, watching where life takes them; in the future, with bright-eyed, adoring girlfriends.
Eventually maybe weddings, grandchildren.
I still haven’t warned them about the wedding part of things – that if they have doubts, to listen to them; to not do what I did.
But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have them in my life.
This life. The one where I’m unconscious, unable to move; my future unknown.
Not once have I imagined anything like this.