Some Sunny Day

The last time I saw my mother was the first week of March.

We hugged each other outside Terminal 1 in Dublin Airport. We had hopped out of a taxi moments before, the driver casually asking us were we off to anywhere exciting. My daughter and my grandson are moving to Saudi Arabia, she said. Her husband moved a month ago. They’re going to join him. I’m just dropping them off.
Christ, the driver said. Not the response he had expected. That will be some experience.

I looked at my mother as she spoke to him, in her gentle Cork lilt. Her chin raised, her head lifted, her shoulders back. Stoicism on full display. A familiar sight, adopted for many years, inherited from her mother before her. She was getting ready to deal with whatever was coming. She was in the brace position. I wondered if I did this too. I decided I would ask her about it some time. But not now. I looked at her again, as she turned her face towards the window, my son bundled between us, backpack on his lap, the head of his favourite Pokémon teddy peering out of the top. I held his hand distractedly as I wondered whether I had packed a book for him to read.

She wouldn’t look at me. She wouldn’t catch my eye. She couldn’t.

The taxi kept moving, flashes of light flickering softly through the trees as we approached the airport, each beam lighting up her face, illuminating the water that had started to pool in her eyes. Another goodbye.

We got out of the taxi slowly, awkwardly. Weighed down by bags, by apprehension, by the remnants of a bottle of Malbec from the night before. I put my hand to head, willing the fog to clear, the distress to lift. Message me once the first leg is over, she said. She hugged me; she hugged my son. I opened my mouth to say something, but a sudden intake of breath got in the way.

I tried again, eyes wet. Why did this never get any easier, I wondered.

Go on now, she whispered. You’ll be home in the summer. And then, she smiled, reaching down to ruffle my son’s hair as he beamed at her. Make sure to send granny photos when you get there, she said. Keeping it light. Her usual way. I knew she would cry once we were safely inside.

It’s been almost three months since that day. Three months since I looked at her beautiful silver-grey hair, and the soft lines on her face. Three months since she held my arm while we chatted about something inane. A habit I will never tire of. I had no idea, when we sat across from each other, sipping our wine the night before I left, that this wouldn’t be a regular goodbye. That this wouldn’t be a see- you- again- soon.

I had no idea that I wouldn’t be back at her door in a few weeks’ time, her smiling face appearing briefly through the glass, as she rushed to turn the key. We have spent longer periods apart before, the consequence of many years spent living abroad. But this time is different. It’s new, and it’s sad, and it’s unwelcome.

I know now that we won’t be home in the summer. In fact, I don’t know when we’ll be home again. And I’m not entirely sure how to deal with that.

Oh love, you just deal with it, she said. In her gentle Cork lilt, as she beamed at me through the screen, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, her face a little too close, as she hasn’t quite got the hang of Face Time yet.

You’ll be fine; I’ll be fine, we’ll all be fine, she said. This has to end sometime.

We hang up and agree to speak again in a few days. As I put the phone down, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. And I laugh. There I am, with my chin raised, and my head lifted, and my shoulders back. Stoicism on full display. Ready to deal with whatever is coming.

I pick up the phone to message her, and see that she’s got there first. A picture floods my screen, of her little garden drenched in sunshine, a glass of wine and her favourite book perched on the deck. This will be you and me soon, she said. Some sunny day.

Simone Gannon, May 2020.