Irritable in the midst of an impossible traffic snarl, I suddenly catch sight of them: Three tall jacaranda trees, on my side of the road. A smile finds its way to my face, dispelling the moodiness of Monday morning
Their grace and tenacity bring my mother to mind. Well into her eighties now, a long history of serious health problems and a life – time of toil and struggle behind her.
She begins each morning, sitting at the edge of her bed, doing what she has done all her life, praying the ancient “Morning Offering” learned in the long-distant catechism of her childhood. So often, recalling the long, tough years of her life, she tells us that it is this singular devotion that has kept her hanging on, the offering of whatever the day brings, good and bad, into the loving hands of her maker.
And the phrase I have heard her repeat so many times over the years, unconsciously quoting the Southern Belle who made them famous in Gone With the Wind. “Forget about it for now,” says Mum, when I moan for the umpteenth time about whatever has upset me on a given day, “Tomorrow is another day.”
Mum was always a chic dresser and she still loves a well-cut dress, a smart pair of shoes, and a good haircut.
And every morning sees her neatly turned out, in an ironed dress, face powdered, hair brushed and tidy, her favourite rose or lavender cologne sprayed on. Just to stay home alone, while I am away at work. “Keep your face towards the sunshine,” wrote she, in my autograph book, many years ago, “and the shadows will fall behind.”
Mum has truly lived her own advice, and now, in the evening of her life, there is a hint of jacaranda in the quaint and comic turn of phrase, the sharp wit, the fierce pride, the touching vanity, the feisty spirit that stares down the bogeys of old age and disease, the celebration of self that is not selfishness, but gratitude to the One from whom all gifts and goodness come.
Like the delicate, daring blossoms in the jacaranda that still clings to boughs unbroken by changes of season and clime, Mum lives for the moment, giving what joy may be hers to share, daring tomorrow to come on and do its darnedest. She has what it takes, today.