A tribute to a mother, a grandmother, and a mother-in-law to be, for giving their everything to the task of making a positive difference in the lives of others.
I feel barely capable of being an adult myself, so it feels surreal to realise that I am raising someone who is very close to becoming one. To do so, I need to rely on the lessons the women of my life taught me, and continue to teach me. These are the three she and I learn from the most.
My mother, Eve, was an exceptional woman, who gave her whole life to helping others. She directed all her energies towards helping people who had no voice, in a time when her voice counted more. She gave up speaking for herself, so she could speak for others.
As her daughter, I am always left raw with the idea that she gave life her everything, and it gave her very little comfort back. Sure, she had a family, and now a legacy that shines. But at the core of my mother, there always sat a stone of being abandoned.
Her mother gave birth to her late in life, and her dad died when she was 10. Sent off to a strict school, and spending school holidays away from home, my mother never really felt much warmth from her own mom – something that was perfectly illustrated to me the day she came home and discovered her beloved dolls house was given away. I had never known that story from my mother’s childhood, until long after she was dead. It revealed to me why she was never able to let go.
Life would view this as tenacious, and love would play this out as a desperate longing. She never fully assimilated losing my dad, and while our family still does not, it was she who died of a broken heart. My mother’s life, however, ensured that my siblings and I will not. When my daughter made Eve a grandmother for the very first time, I realised that her life has a longevity that none of us expected.
My child’s paternal grandmother, Anne, is an exceptional woman, who gives her whole life to helping others. I am beyond lucky, because she has been in my life for the entirety of it, and now holds the post of being the mother figure who has been in it the longest. As a child, she raised me when my mother could not, and she loved me through losing my own mother. She is the person I call for parenting advice, and the person I turn to when I am not sure on how to raise my daughter.
From her life, has sprung so much love and guidance that I do not even know how to calculate her influence – every person who knows her, has known her, has been wholly shaken and settled by her love. As she is the mother of four boys, I have often wondered where she found all this love, and then set about giving it all away. When my daughter made Anne a grandmother for the very first time, I realised that her life has a longevity none of us expected.
My mother-in-law-to-be, Diane, is an exceptional woman, who gives her whole life to helping others. Her craft and skills have helped bring to life not only stories of love and commitment, but everlasting things that become heirlooms and history.
Moreover, her love lives in the way she cares for every single person around her, and how she pours all her energy into the details that make memories. I entered her life during a time of transition – where she was becoming a grandmother for the very first time, and I was just beginning a story that would define my own life. As we now stand, on the precipice of joining our legacies together, I realise that her life has a longevity none of us expected.
The legacy of women who surround my daughter’s life makes up an intricate trampoline, from which she will – one day, sooner than I’d like – spring into adulthood. Of course, my own life story winds into the netting of this trampoline, and I realise that this jumping board of life is crafted with love, and held up by arches of arms that belong to women who give life their everything.
I think it’s time I started giving life everything.
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