When your mother finally passes, that is when you will understand the true meaning of loss.
Losing your father is bad enough, but so many people grow up in single-family units, when the old man goes towards the light they tend to cope better.
But when your mother goes, when the person who bore you in her body for nine long moths, nourished you with her very essence, and then spasmed you into the world in a welter of pain that would kill a man, then you will know that you are finally alone, and it’s truly time to stand on your own two feet, head up, shoulders back, and face the wind.
Please forgive the previous and forthcoming generalisations. There are certainly mothers out there who are waste-heaps of trash, and the loss of a father can be truly devastating, but on general principles there is truly nothing like a mother’s love.
The sheer uncompromising ferocity and unconditional nature of this love is what you have lost when your mum dies. Nothing will ever replace it. Nothing will even come close to it. If you have kids, you’ll have an idea. And if you’re a mum, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
This is why, there are a few times in a man’s life when the ONLY possible person he can call is his mum. Imagine the sheer extremis of such a situation. You’ve found yourself in a deep pit of such heinous shit you’re unable to even process the dismay. Your eyes are wide in horror and despair, and you smell like a pit they bulldoze dead pigs into.
The one and only thing you can do to make things slightly less terrible, is to call your mum. She will help you in all the ways you need to be helped.
Obviously, and because we have two parents, there are times when you need to call your father. You need help burying bodies or offing witnesses, and your mates have all run away because the knife is too bloody and the floor is too slippery for them to recall how often they referred to you as “brother”.
Your father, if he’s a proper father, will be the gangster you need when there’s gangster shit to be done. But your mother…well, she’s the one you turn to when you need mothering.
We can all agree that men need mothering throughout their lives. The amount and frequency of the required mothering drops off over time – and stops completely (even though you’d wish it hadn’t) when your mother dies. So as an infant and a child you need it constantly because your learning curve is steep and sometimes painful. You need mothering just as much in your teenage years, but because you’re an arrogant teenager and are convinced you know everything, you may not call her as often as you should.
But when you wake up one morning, rancid with dried vomit, your clothes torn, your eyes blackened and half shut, your wallet missing, piss and shit in and on your pants (your own and someone else’s), your hands bruised, and your hair spiked upright with indescribable filth, the ONLY person you can call, is your mother.
She will not understand. And you must never tell her what little you remember, or why you and your idiot mates thought that whatever crimes and sins you committed were a great idea at the time. And you don’t have to tell her. She doesn’t care. All she cares about is that you’re alive and that you loved her enough to call her in your moment of animal desperation.
She may not even be able to solve your problem – and you’d be a piece of shit to expect her to – but she will make the right noises, those wondrous mothering noises, and you will know, as you sit in your own wretched and aching filth, that at least there’s one person on this planet that gives a fuck about you.
Sometimes, you need to call her for just those reasons as you move through your twenties. You just need to know someone gives a damn about you. Because once again, you have brought untold shame upon yourself and your family. You are a filthy degenerate. You’ve shit yourself, some animal has pooed in your mouth, and once again, a variety of sour vomit covers you like a sheen of stinking carroty misery. You have sung your Death Song, and you’d kill yourself if only you had a trace of wit about you. But you don’t. You’re done.
You’re not a teenager anymore, yet once again, you have managed to dive head-first into a sewer, and drunk deeply of the juice you’d found.
You do not need judgement. And you are beyond help, because at your age you should know better, which only compounds the self-revulsion you feel. No, you do not need judgement because you have already judged and convicted yourself. You need mothering. You need it more than air.
When you’re in your thirties and forties, it’s possible the aforementioned self-inflicted horrors might still occur. They may be less frequent, but they are, by dint of your age, exponentially more appalling. You now have credit cards, well-developed fetishes, and are possibly desperate to alleviate the boredom your life has become. So, when you dive back into that gurgling sewer, the end-result is truly catastrophic. Even the fucking ambos don’t want to touch you, if any of your half-wit mates had the presence of mind to call them. If your wife finds out, you’ll be paying for a lawyer’s holiday in Bora Bora and living in a hostel.
But your mum? Well, she will still, even in her old age when you should be the one doing nice things for her, comfort you as only a mother could. She won’t even care that you reek and are sticky to the touch. She may even help you to pull out those broken teeth you’ve somehow managed to imbed in your knuckles.
You are her child, and you will always find your ease in her arms.
By the time you hit middle age, you have no business calling your mum. And you probably couldn’t even if you wanted to. She is either gone to her reward, or you’ve driven her mad and she is in full-time care and wearing nappies. But there will be times when you wish with all your heart that you still could. Because despite your best intentions, you are a fallible creature, and now and again you may still very will listen to that dark inner voice that calls to you. And you may yet again dive into the sewer you’d sworn to never dive into ever again.
And naturally, the end result of such a thing is now compounded by your advancing years. If a simple hangover renders you a vegetable for three days, just imagine what an eight-ball of coke, three teenage whores, 12 hours necking of creamy homosexual cocktails, and dancing like an epileptic will do to you.
You could not even explain yourself to a judge were you to be arraigned before one. And you might very well need to. His Honour would probably insist on it before sentencing. But you would not have to explain it to your mother. She gave birth to you. She knows what you are.
She has always known that. And she still loved you with every inch of her being.
Treasure her. Because you will certainly miss her when she’s gone.
Subscribe and get to see the real spicy stuff and much more Check HERE to see what you get |
Alternatively, Tip me without subscribing if you enjoy my work. |
Or Via Paypal |
