My Mother
For Cecelia Anastacia Dunn
My mother
is a radio station somewhere between twenty-four-seven fast talk
hip-jiving-modern pop and arm-swaying-love-crooning golden oldies.
She’s a storyteller and memory caretaker that will make you travel in time,
dream in lead, ink and chalk, make you brave in the dark ,
make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh.
My mother
is a St. Stephen and Mother Theresa to all animals
with a particular passion for the canine kind.
She’s got a song, a game, a history and psychology for each one
spontaneously sprouting in the fecund soil of her mind,
so that even when their mongrel bodies leave, their stories stay behind.
My mother
is a self-confessed sucker for tear-jerking movies, romance and sentimentality
whether she’s shamelessly hooked on soapies or revelling in classical love stories,
drawn to kitsch ornaments or bright floral linen with frilly edges as a final touch.
Still, she’s no fool when it comes to the real thing; she has loved with abandon,
had her fair share of betrayal , been broken in battle, sacrificed and lost so much.
My mother
is a stubborn warrior, a proud Leo, a rebel turning her back on the pack
she’s bold dreamer, a healer, a teacher beyond paper, desks and walls.
A daughter who raised her brothers and sisters, when her mother died in childbirth,
loving them through the trauma, the poverty, the difficulty of all their youth;
she knows compassion, the value of family, of her history , every detail she recalls.
My mother
is in the tone of my skin, the curve of my back, the shadow in my gesture, my face
she’s the dance of a woman’s defiance, rising in my relationships, blazing in my eyes
a lover of words, of company, the treasurer of memories and small priceless things.
She’s a campaigner for individuality, seeker of variety,
the risk-taker and dream-scaper I have now become.
Being her first and only daughter I feel her resonance in my bones
I recognise the kind of mother she’s been, guiding the way I raise my sons.
My mother
is her own woman, a character, a soul separate from mine
but my life is inscribed with her passion, her being.
Even she says: when I grow, when I heal, when I fly, so does she -
my mother lives inextricably and eternally in me.
Saturday 15th December 2007
(Day after her father’s 80th birthday, 4 days before she flew from Jo’burg to spend the Christmas holiday with me.)
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