You left us a few days ago. Your soul finally left your body, where it had been incarcerated for such a long time. Your frail, old, decaying body that was but a pale shadow of what it used to be; and each day that went by you decayed a little more, and each day I was sorrier to see you that way. I looked at you and wondered how it is possible for someone to come to this …
Tag: mother
I was offered a book of short stories from a Portuguese author for Christmas. I had never read any of her books, and wasn’t particularly interested, but I have to say it was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed the stories, stories about women and their loves, struggles and achievements. The story in the book One story reminded me of you. Actually, there were two stories, or rather two sides to the same story: that of a mother …
Many years ago, in my teens, “New Kid in Town” was one of our favourite ballads, and the fact that it immediately followed “Hotel California” on the vinyl record meant we had about ten solid minutes of slow songs to dance without interruption, which might be good, if you had the right partner, or disastrous, if not… Still, it was a song that we warmed to, and I still have it among other precious oldies on my Spotify list. …
Some songs are just nice to listen to; some others, though, carry a strong message that goes straight to your heart. “You’re Not There”, by Lukas Graham, is an infinitely sad song whose lyrics tell a story of pain and loss. From the first time I heard it, it sounded like a heartfelt message from a son to a mother or father (or both) who died prematurely. Years later, the child talks to his missing parent, saying he …
Let me introduce a few characters in my book, Love Secrets Lies. First there’s Teresa, the protagonist. The story spans five years of her life. When it begins, in 1975, she’s twelve, and her storybook life has just been upended by a revolution that forces her to move to a country and a city where she feels like a foreigner. Her grandparents worry too much about her, keep her under strict supervision and allowing her little freedom …
If only I could bear the weight of your pain upon my shoulders, If only it could be me wearing those crutches whose metallic sound on the floor has become so hard to bear. If only I could rip the heartache out of your chest and bring it into mine, Knowing your heart would henceforth be beating peacefully and joyfully. If only I could wipe away the infinite sorrow from your beautiful blue eyes, Whose bewildered look breaks my own …
Tomorrow it will be precisely twenty-one years that I received the most precious Christmas gift of all: my son Pedro, “the most beautiful baby she had ever seen” in the words of his proud Grandma, who naturally had already forgotten saying the very same words almost four years before, when my son Afonso was born, on a sunny February day that felt like an early Spring. Christmas baby Little Pedro was born on a grey December day, but he …
Life is seldom simple, and neither are mother-daughter relationships; as much as we may love our mothers, and they love us, it always seems complicated. At least in our family. For many years you fail to understand why it is so. You try, you try hard. And then one day, suddenly it all becomes so clear, and you finally grasp it, and it becomes so much easier to understand – and forgive. Old times Take Granny, for instance. …
“Didn’t I” is the title of a recent song by Rod Stewart; a poignant song, one might even say a father’s lament about how his daughter didn’t listen to his loving advice and ended up “fighting for her life”. It tells a sad story every parent relates to, no matter what. Even if our children are well and happy today, there was always a time when we feared they would not make it for some reason, namely during their rebellious …
I find her sitting in her chair, as usual, with her eyes closed. I kiss her and say, “Happy Mother’s Day” and hand her her gift: a pink nightdress. She wanly smiles. She likes it and I’m glad. It’s so difficult to give her presents nowadays. Most things will be useless; they won’t even interest her. I now push her chair for a few metres, from her room to the small living room where she used to take her …
