This special day has come and gone one more time. I have had the good luck to have another year, to celebrate with my mother, even though from a distance. I could call her and tell her some of the many things in my heart. She is old and in poor health and is largely confined to a wheel chair. To others around her, maybe, she is just another frail old woman who needs assistance for everything but for me she is still the feisty woman who managed, with limited resources, to raise three children and give them a sound education. It is thanks largely to her that we (my siblings and I) are sound adults with values to be proud of. I guess my description of my mother would fit most mothers. Women like her are the strong backbones of most families who carry on in spite of huge challenges, and are the ones who give their most to ensure that their children get the best chances in life.

 

So on this special day let me share with you some of my thoughts as I watch my mother struggle with the burdens of old age. That her health is not good is only one of her problems. The harder thing, for her, to cope with is the fading canvas of her life. She, like all of us, once had a ‘life canvas’ full of people and things. She was the Prima Donna of the painting on that canvas. Around her revolved the world of her husband, her children and her many relatives. The canvas of her life was full of strong colors and rainbow hues of her wishes and hopes.

 

Life dealt her losses the way it does to all of us. She lost her parents and distance made her contact with her siblings sporadic. But she coped with it all with her usual indomitable spirit and optimism. She kept her canvas full and bright. Time marched on and slowly the list, of dear ones lost, grew longer. An aunt here, a sister- in -law there, slowly the people in her canvas began to fade away. Many exited the canvas altogether and finding new ones to people her canvas became harder and harder.

 

 She still coped with it all still because she had the canvases of her children’s life to fill with color. Then slowly we began to leave home and set up our own nests. Some more colors faded from her canvas but she carried on with what she had and tried to repopulate her canvas with her son- in –law, daughters- in –law, and the grandchildren.

 

But then life dealt her the cruelest blow by taking from her picture the central character, her best friend and soul mate, my father. This was one fade out she could not counter. Try as she might there was no one else to replace this central figure of her life’s canvas. At a time that she needed her children the most our lives became busier as we trod the treadmill of our careersand our own families.Slowly the unthinkable happened. Unwittingly we began to fade out of her canvas. Some of us were physically there for her but no longer were we able to be the brightest spot on her canvas.........

 

 Her increasing frailness makes constant demands on our physical and mental resources and while coping with her physical needs we tend to forget the woman within that frail body. People are all around her even now but not really with her. She sits silent at most family meals because no one has the time to listen to her stories, stories that she has probably told  a thousand times before. She is thankful for what others do for her but I now understand what she longs for. She wants her paint brush and tubes of paint back. She wants her canvas refilled with color. I sensed this as I sat watching a sunset with her on a recent visit. And I think it is still not too late. I cannot undo the past but I can change things for whatever time is left.

 

 So this time I have bought her no conventional gifts. My effort from now on is to try and help my mum recolor her canvas. For a start I am going to call her every day and talk with her. Loneliness is the bleach that fades the canvas most for the elderly and I am going to make time to chat with her everyday. She doesn’t need much, just a willing ear to share her many memories with. I am going to be that listener. If she tells me the same story a million times, it will be my privilege to hear it. I will be the one to carry her precious memories ahead and share them with my daughter.

 

For those of you who still have your mums, I have only one piece of advice to give. Be the brightest spot on your mother’s fading canvas.