Mother love

All about my daughter, and love to mothers everywhere

Some of you might have seen the Note I posted not so long ago about my teenage daughter slowly emerging after three years of Long Covid and all its affiliated complications. I wrote how I was struck by the small signs of her slow recovery, and how she had started to sing in the shower again. I also mentioned she had applied to art school. That Note went viral, and I received such an amazing array of responses - from people offering sympathy, and admiration at how far we had come together, recognising my support of her, and also sharing their own struggles with fatigue, or chronic conditions. It’s a testament to the kindness over here on Substack that I received only one stupid or unpleasant response to that Note, and long may this kindness continue.

But I also wanted to share with you today that my daughter was offered a place at the art school she applied to. It is London College of Fashion. (She has since told me a number of times that it has only an 11 per cent success rate for applications - ‘And Mum, I was one of them!’). We are all overjoyed.

I went up to her bedroom yesterday to change her bed sheets before she returned home from being away, and I took a moment to absorb the news, and how far we have come from when she could barely leave that same room, confined within those walls, trapped within the limitation of her body. Reflecting back, I think this was the hardest part for me, that following on from Covid when the whole world had shut down, my daughter’s world had shrunk even more. Days, and weeks, months, would pass and she would barely make it past those walls. She slept, she ate food I brought her, she watched Netflix. And there was me, sitting on the edge of her bed knowing what she was missing, but having to stay calm, and to dig into the depths of my heart, beneath all the anxiety and fear, to keep reminding myself that one day she would recover: that she would find herself again, and step out into the world, and be in a position to take what it offered her - and to be happy once more. We just simply needed patience.

And now, here we are, having to plan accommodation and student finance, and think seriously about how she will cope away from home… without her mother, without me.

Today we got in the car and I drove my kids to their granny’s for coffee. We didn’t stay long because I have woken up with a cold, and my stepdad is vulnerable, and I didn’t want to pass anything on. But my daughter told her grandmother all about her application, and she showed her her offer letter, and spoke about her excitement and her concerns, and my mother listened and reassured, as all good mothers and grandmothers do. And as we left my mother said to me, ‘well done for all you’ve done. You’ve carried this mostly on your own, and I know the worry, the responsibility, hasn’t come without a cost.’ Of course it hasn’t. I reminded her that I haven’t been on my own. I am supported. I have the kids’ father, with whom I am on good terms, and I have Prashad. But, still, it was good to be acknowledged, today, on Mother’s Day, and on such a beautiful day, too. I am now sitting in the garden, and the sun is shining down on me, and my two teens are happy and getting on with their stuff, and the neighbour’s kids, much younger, are jumping on the trampoline, and my dog, Elsa, has slumped beside me, snoozing, pressed up against my thigh. And it all feels more poignant in the light of past struggle. It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it? The worry sometimes feels impassable.

This post really is for all you mothers out there. All of you, whether your kids are doing well, if their relationship to the world is happy and straightforward, or if they have found life harder for some reason. This is for all that love that you continue to give, and how much of a rock you are, a lodestar, their guiding light. When my daughter started to get better, she went for her first tattoo (she has since had a few others) and she asked for a simple drawing of a lily pad, to show in her own way how grateful she is for my mother love. If you look closely, you can see it on her arm in the photo above. Happy Mother’s Day to All Mothers, and all that you do.