Since my mum died, I’ve taken solace in recalling the times we could sit together and be content as mother and daughter
On the rainy morning last winter when Mum was dying, her medical condition brought on hallucinations, and in a sad, faraway voice she pleaded to be taken out on to the veranda so she could look at the light. It was one of the last things she said. The hospital had no veranda. Who knows which veranda she meant. She had lived in many different houses with verandas. After she died, I sat with her, stroking the skin of her right arm where it was savagely bruised from a fall the night before.
Mum loved warm weather. I love the crisp air and diffusive light of winter. We were different enough that it’s not a stretch to call her summer and me winter. We found it hard to get along and never truly resolved our differences. But at times, I think we created a place to meet and share a quiet mutual acceptance, an in-between space not unlike a veranda.