She was the only passenger aboard. We all stayed silently ashore
I long for my mother’s bread
My mother’s coffee
Her touch
Childhood memories grow up in me
Day after day
“To My Mother” by Mahmoud Darwish
My mother died on Thursday 28th December 2023. She died peacefully (or so I’ve been told). She was found by my niece’s husband, who, like my niece, is a doctor. She was pronounced dead at 9:36am, local time in Havana. I was informed of her passing at around 9pm, local time in London.
The above are facts. Every single one. Facts are like bricks on a wall: cold, impersonal, impenetrable. You can’t talk to a brick (or to a wall, come to that). Same with facts. You can try to stare them down, and you will fail to break them, or choose to close your eyes in their presence, knowing that they’ll still be there when you open your eyes again.
But all walls have cracks. Whether by (faulty) design or time-ravaged existence, lines appear, fissures set in. The hardest rock is never immune to splitting. In human beings these gaps represent the nuanced life stages we live. The moments of strength and vulnerability, of fear and courage, of ennui and excitement. My mother lived them all.
To the outside world she was the woman married to the pianist for many years. She was never asked for her opinion on anything, especially in the presence of my dad’s friends, the majority of them, fellow musicians. Later on she became the single mother to a teenage boy. The hard-working parent who supported me financially through my college and university years, despite the fact (yet another cold brick in the wall) that she earned a lot less than my father.
But the cracks… the cracks talk. I happen to know that my mother was more than a supporting actress in my dad’s personal play. She was an educator. The nursery she used to work at still exists today on L St. She was the teacher who taught me how to read and write whilst I was bed-bound in hospital. The first of many gastritis-related stays. She was even my boxing trainer (laughs) when demonstrating how to get back at any other boy who tried to bully me.
At the end of March 2023, my sister-cousin moved my mum in with her and her family. By then, my mum’s memory was fading away rapidly and the dementia that would eventually finish the job on 28th December had begun its ugly work. From walking up and down the streets of Havana looking for the best avocados, my mum had now been confined to a bed and a wheelchair.
I didn’t rush to her side straight away. At the time — almost a year now — I blamed it on work. It was true, in a way. But I was also afraid. The last time I’d seen my mother had been in September 2019. She was slightly forgetful but could still cook and buy groceries. She was as active as she’d ever been, body aches notwithstanding.
But this time I was apprehensive about what I’d find. I did eventually make my way to Havana in September 2023 and spent as much time with my mother as I could. Painful as it was to see her in an almost vegetative state, I knew that we didn’t have much time left together, mother and son.
During the months between finding out how much worse my mother had gotten and my visit to Havana, I walked and cycled the streets of London endlessly wondering how many others were experiencing a similar situation. Down to the specifics: an immigrant man in his early fifties is losing one of his parents to dementia. I even allowed myself an intrusive and uncomfortable thought: was I not lucky to outlive my mother? Wasn’t that the order of things? I outlive my parents, my children will outlive me. I banished the thought from my head straight away.
It’s strange to find oneself bereaved and bereft at 52. But I was. The definition that was the hardest to deal with was that of being an orphan. I’d always seen orphans (incorrectly, of course) as one of Dickens’ creations, or as props in donation appeals on television. Yet, my bereavement made me an adult orphan. I also felt terribly sad and lonely, even though I’d only seen my mother twice in the space of four years. But try reasoning with pain if you can; you’re bound to fail.
In the midst of my sorrow, there were three lessons that I took away with me. I’d like to believe that it would have made my mother happy to know that her death had brought with it the smallest of silver linings. She was one of the kindest and most giving human beings I ever knew. And, no, I’m not saying this because I was her son, but because the cracks were there to prove it.
My first lesson was that life is short and unpredictable. My time on planet Earth is finite. This thought makes me driven in a way that goes beyond material ambition. Spirituality, emotional intelligence, and mental strength are far more important to me than the latest mobile phone.
My second lesson was that this was the only life I had. What was I going to do with it from this point onwards? In her eighty-six years my mum had done a lot, even if on the surface didn’t look as much. As for me, I had already relocated to a different country and continent aged twenty-six, had had two children by the time I was thirty, had retrained as a teacher, had written a book and had it published, had signed up as a volunteer for various charities, had run four marathons and three half-marathons, also for charity. The list goes on. What next in this one life?
The third lesson was that I came into this world naked and naked I’d leave it. Same as my mother did before she was cremated. Same as you, reader. What is the point then of chasing wealth if it devalues your experience? Isn’t it better to enjoy the experience regardless of the outcome?
You won’t find these three lessons on a fact-built wall. You will only find them when you open yourself to the possibility that the cracks on the wall may well tell you more about the person you are than the cold, impersonal, impenetrable bricks. After all, it’s the cracks that let the sunlight in.
...
Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner, on sale now.