Notes on mothering


When your daughter was eight, you and she bought a small posy. Beaming she handed it to her little sister for her birthday. Wednesday you were woken not by those warm, bleary bodies, but a primeval roar. Left silent and still, your thoughts alone rose to meet the day. Time travelled backwards.

That posy - round, red - stayed in its brown paper on your kitchen table, and you were away for ninety bedtimes. From your high perch, surrounded by the finest flowers in Bloomsbury that day, that posy seemed perfect. Returning home a pale shadow you slowly, slowly, started again.



Faith Vincent 2011