Dec with his mother and father. Image supplied.
Another Mother’s Day, come and gone. Scented candles, chocolates and Cliff Richard calendars, as though all mothers have a thirst for Jasmine scents, diabetes and creepy-looking men. Like every year, I admired the festivity of it all, but the occasion didn’t really apply to my life. A bit like how my close friend describes celebrating Christmas as a British Muslim.I’m 24. Mum died 23 years ago, a week before my first birthday. And Dad, when I was 18. They were teens when I was born prematurely, three months early. She died from SLE, or Lupus, a year later. The loss sent Dad on a raging bender that lasted 18 years before he died in an accident at age 34.Here's the thing: I’m a stable young guy who turned out alright in the end, but that leads to assumptions about my background—like that I must have live parents. But I don't. And while I’m comfortable talking about my reality, answering questions or divulging what happened, not everyone else is. Oh shit, I’m so sorry, they say. Hands fly to cover mouths, eyes widen, as if they fear I'll fly into an orphanistic rage.Visiting my hometown is always joyful and grounding, but I've also had to adapt to the glances from people I don’t know. People who knew them. The braver ones approach me with a hug and a wow, you look just like him. Then they pull their lips together, grab or pat my shoulder, and flee.My discomfort doesn't rest at the seats where my parents should be sat, but with the awkwardness of everyone else at the table. With their panicked apologies, followed swiftly by my scrabbling to minimise the damage with reassuring tones. My whole being reconfigures to reduce their discomfort—from my smile, to the friendly tenor of my voice, to my comforting words. I let them know that they have not just single-handedly re-traumatised me. But I know they don't believe it because they continue to walk on eggshells around me, and that's what hurts.Ultimately, I’m embarrassed by their embarrassment. I don't want to be treated differently: people mean to be kind, but often they’re too careful. I struggle with that extra consideration; it distracts from the real. And I just want people to be comfortable around me.And yet, with age has come an increased reluctance to mop up their mortification. I've grown weary of the identikit reactions of sympathy and shock. It wasn’t people’s sensitivity that fatigued me; in the end, it was the work I had to do for them—the effort it took to calm their fear of putting their foot in it.
My family kept Mum's memory alive through photos and stories. I didn’t need to have “the chat” explaining why my grandmother wasn’t my mother, I just understood it. My maternal grandmother still writes cards to her—tightly wrapped in cellophane, to fight off the weather—as though Mum is still here. It comforts me to see the solace this brings her.I didn’t have to live through the grief of Mum's death on an adult level, so it was "easy" for me in that respect. Dad’s death was different. It took therapy and adjustment and time. Family had made sure I always had a line of contact with him and his best intentions, which were marred by flitting appearances before he vanished once again to chase manual work to scape by. He’d do anything for anyone. He was a very good, though exceptionally troubled, young man. The best man, in his own ways.Mine, Mum’s, and Dad’s birthday’s are all on the 8th—June, January and April. Mum’s favourite football team was Manchester United, and Dad’s favourite song was I’ll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy et al. As figures in my life, they’re ethereal but present. I miss them at the normal times: at my graduation they came up on stage with me as a photo in my gown pocket. Perhaps surprisingly, birthdays and anniversaries are fine. At more unpredictable times, I miss Dad and yearn for the time I never got with Mum. Like when I pass the roadside McDonald’s where Dad and I grabbed our last words together one summery Sunday evening. Then I feel an emptiness. I close my eyes to remember his voice and carry on.I ask myself where Mum might have fit in, given the chance. What she’d do for a job, where she’d live. I’d love to know what books she'd read, how she'd smell, what she'd watch on Netflix. Would she be proud of me graduating university? Would she have liked any of my (many) boyfriends? I yearn for her the most when I watch friends argue with their own mothers, over unwashed dishes or muddy clothes. When I see my friends really shit on their mums. I sit at their kitchen tables, and I'm bewildered.
People mean well. They don’t know I'm truly “at one” with my situation. I got used to it—I had to. It’s my universe, and their expectations clash with my reality. Conversely, my friends and I have a sense of humour about it, but also about their own lives. We bond over our parents not being around in one way or another: death for me, an absent mother for one, a wayward father for another.I love when people tell me stories about their parents, about their family life. It’s evocative, and I want to hear all of it. I’m happy to tell you about my parents, too—all four of them. My biological ones, who died young, and my maternal grandparents; my parents from another universe, who stepped in to save my premature, transparent skin.
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My family kept Mum's memory alive through photos and stories. I didn’t need to have “the chat” explaining why my grandmother wasn’t my mother, I just understood it. My maternal grandmother still writes cards to her—tightly wrapped in cellophane, to fight off the weather—as though Mum is still here. It comforts me to see the solace this brings her.I didn’t have to live through the grief of Mum's death on an adult level, so it was "easy" for me in that respect. Dad’s death was different. It took therapy and adjustment and time. Family had made sure I always had a line of contact with him and his best intentions, which were marred by flitting appearances before he vanished once again to chase manual work to scape by. He’d do anything for anyone. He was a very good, though exceptionally troubled, young man. The best man, in his own ways.Mine, Mum’s, and Dad’s birthday’s are all on the 8th—June, January and April. Mum’s favourite football team was Manchester United, and Dad’s favourite song was I’ll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy et al. As figures in my life, they’re ethereal but present. I miss them at the normal times: at my graduation they came up on stage with me as a photo in my gown pocket. Perhaps surprisingly, birthdays and anniversaries are fine. At more unpredictable times, I miss Dad and yearn for the time I never got with Mum. Like when I pass the roadside McDonald’s where Dad and I grabbed our last words together one summery Sunday evening. Then I feel an emptiness. I close my eyes to remember his voice and carry on.I ask myself where Mum might have fit in, given the chance. What she’d do for a job, where she’d live. I’d love to know what books she'd read, how she'd smell, what she'd watch on Netflix. Would she be proud of me graduating university? Would she have liked any of my (many) boyfriends? I yearn for her the most when I watch friends argue with their own mothers, over unwashed dishes or muddy clothes. When I see my friends really shit on their mums. I sit at their kitchen tables, and I'm bewildered.
People mean well. They don’t know I'm truly “at one” with my situation. I got used to it—I had to. It’s my universe, and their expectations clash with my reality. Conversely, my friends and I have a sense of humour about it, but also about their own lives. We bond over our parents not being around in one way or another: death for me, an absent mother for one, a wayward father for another.I love when people tell me stories about their parents, about their family life. It’s evocative, and I want to hear all of it. I’m happy to tell you about my parents, too—all four of them. My biological ones, who died young, and my maternal grandparents; my parents from another universe, who stepped in to save my premature, transparent skin.