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3 hours ago
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Among the myriad things I doubt my mother realises reminds me of her is the embroidered coat hanger.
The hangers with the delicate, lace cloth, designed to protect. The ones handmade with personal touches no global chain would bother with because, just like a lifetime of maternal love, if you are lucky, it is sewn with the same kind of slow, attentive care.
Sometimes, when I spot a row of them lined up in my closet, I fleetingly imagine a time when she will no longer be able to cushion my life with the same consistent abundance of warmth I once naively assumed everyone had.
As a young adult, I admit I took for granted such Christmas stocking fillers, or other small surprises of daily thoughtfulness, along with the kind of exceptional nurturing that covered not just wardrobe essentials but all my emotional needs.
Or perhaps I once felt some sort of “hanger apathy” because, not only does my mother not share my disdain for needle crafts, there are also so many other unaligned threads of our lives we often laugh about.
She grew up in the Sydney suburbs of post-second world war austerity and, now 88, has been married to my father for 65 years and has helped run businesses, much devoted to being a mother and grandmother. I am a gay woman, never married and with no children – my life built instead around strong friendships, siblings, journalism and travelling the globe.
She was always a girly girl, with slender feet and delicate hands, who, like her own mother, once sewed her own clothes because, in the 1950s, who could afford to buy any? She laughs softly, delights in pretty dresses and homegrown roses, drinks one glass of bubbles and craves no more, favours pragmatism over romanticism, dislikes the limelight, goes to bed early.
I was a somewhat boisterous daughter, with flat feet, a love of black pants, a tendency to drink a glass of bubbles and crave 10 more, who despised rules, was too often idealistic (“Oh, the Irish, always dreamers,” she often remarks drily of our ancestors) and went to bed too often too late.
She still meets with friends fondly called “the jet setters”, who once spent weekends away hardly leaving the state. I have lived in four global cities, reported from conflict zones to the Oscars and reaped the benefits of a generation who travels widely and often. But she never complains about this generational gap in women’s education, careers, identities, freedoms. In an age of self-centred politics and look-at-me social media, she is more interested than in appearing interesting.
Despite all the differences, our bond is such that although we both love words, we can read each other instantly without any. I’ve also inherited from her a penchant for asking questions (too many), a wonder for the world and its natural beauty (she, the mountains; me, the sea), and a sensitivity that comes from too much empathy for one’s own good.
On life’s big question – if it all ended tomorrow – no regrets or skeletons are hanging in her closet. When it came time long ago to come out of my own, despite her growing up in times when gay meant jolly or, later, something to do with Rock Hudson, after her initial loving acceptance she wrote to me as I moved across the globe, “I truly believe that it’s the strongest people in life who are given the biggest challenges”, sensing and sending strength in my time of greatest need.
A friend of mine and I were discussing funerals the other day (hot current topic), knowing one day we will face what we’ve always dreaded. A time when the person who has centred me, never hung me out to dry, will be leaving for somewhere beyond. We both thought, “Why do we wait until they are gone to tell the world what they mean to us?”
Because Mum, will you hear me when I impart to the pews the sort of person you are: your life trajectory from shy child of frugal times to assertive grandmother, the way you embraced your marriage, made your friends feel seen. But most of all, your devotion as a mother. If we become what we behold, as William Blake wrote, then mum, you embody what it is to love.
And so, we realised, instead of sorrow, we need to remember that these women who cradled us in the soft cloth of selfless love will always be hanging in the closet of our souls any time we need them. Padded with care. Kindness. Strength. We carry on their wisdom, their love for us, the extraordinary in the everyday ordinary.
