What Makes a Great Mother

For me to know what a great mother is, all I have to do is look to the example of my own mother.

Image: A bouquet of flowers as it's Mother's day.

I consider myself incredibly lucky. My mother has always been nurturing and patient with me in difficult times. A shoulder to cry on, and a beautiful woman to observe, has a great sense of humour herself… She even laughs at my jokes, when some people I know say they aren’t funny, haha. So many things to write, but there are three points I would like to focus on today.

Compassion

Mum has always cared deeply even about the smallest of creatures. Say it has rained and a stray worm is struggling on the footpath, unable to get to the soil, Mum would always go and pick it up and toss it onto the fresh grass or soil so it could burrow back down. She would similarly pick up spiders, small and large with a broom to take them out of the house instead of killing them (minus the poisonous redbacks).

Her compassion extends beyond little critters. As a kid, if we spilt a drink, or dropped and smashed a glass, she would calmly say either ‘No need to cry over spilt milk’ or ‘It’s ok, it was only an accident’ and together we would clean things up.

These instilled in me a sense of what is worth caring about and what isn’t. Care for each other, care for animals, care for yourself. Don’t worry about little replaceable things like glasses. It’s the living that counts.

Humour

Our family has been through some tough times with all of the brain health issues that have happened over the years. But Mum (and her friends Ruth and Karlee, two other fantastic mothers) taught me how to laugh with dark humour in a way that lifts you above the pain. The sarcasm of seeing things turn to shit and saying ‘Oh great! Here we go again!’ is the only way I can think to describe it. Adding a few swearwords never hurts either.

Cop it on the chin

When Mum asked her Dad, “Moo”, who was sick with cancer how he was going, he said ‘Well, you just have to cop it on the chin.’ Like a boxer in a fight, taking a hit while fighting back, I believe Moo put into words that day a concept that Mum already lived her life by: you don’t give up. You just take it on the chin and keep going, making the most of what you can. If you don’t know how to do something, you just keep at it until you’ve worked it out. When life is tough, you match it with your own strength. You take the bad with the good.

I hope I can take on board this lesson even more as I age.

So, thank you for these life lessons, Mum. I will remember these and others (I will always clean my toaster’s crumb tray, I swear…. If I ever get a toaster again that is) for as long as I live. You are the bomb. Happy Mother’s Day.

-Larz,

8/05/2022