I am here now mommy...

There was a time as a little child a long time ago, when all I yearned for was the undivided and unreserved love of my mother.


For many years as I grew up, that one need served to define who I was becoming back then. It defined my desires and my choices and the inevitable consequences; but I grew up and I became this that I am.

Many, many years later again – after I lost my mother and my morals – I finally came to realize that I was never a consequence, but I am a cause: I have caused so much.

Pain and laughter and loss and gain.

Now just about to turn forty-two I return again to my mother’s side. Now she is frail and needing: she is what she finds so hard to admit. She is a lousy mother but she remains a great woman even in her frail humility.

Today she thanked me for a simple gesture – a gesture that I would make a million times over, just for that one moment never before lived: that unadorned ‘thank you my boy’ said so simply, so true. I thank you too mother. I thank you for the woman you are and probably always were – for the human being you’ve become: for the mother you never were - not to me or them or any of us; but the mother you are. And now this cherished moment – this love of the children for you our mother is unique.

Now I can truly dedicate my life and my work to this extended moment I share with you. All of the past is forgotten yet so acutely remembered: so beautifully crystallized into a moment that I will always hold dear; while I was here, while I am near to you now mom: I love you…