oOn a rainy morning last winter, my mother had hallucinations due to her illness and, in a distant voice, begged me to take her to the veranda so she could see the light. That was one of the last things she said. The hospital had no veranda. Who knows which veranda she means? She lived in several houses with verandas. After she died, I sat with her and stroked the skin on her right arm, which had been badly bruised from a fall the night before.
Mom loved the warm weather. I love the crisp air and diffuse light of winter. We were so different that it would be no exaggeration to say that she was summer and I was winter. We had a hard time getting along and never really resolved our differences. However, sometimes I think we have created an intermediate space that is no different from a veranda, a space where we can meet and share quiet mutual acceptance.
As I was going through photos the day before the funeral, I found a photo of my mother taking a moment to catch some sunlight, sitting on a deck chair in front of the veranda of the inscription house on the main street of a small town in north-west Victoria, a town where we lived in the late 70s and early 80s, a town that suffered more frequent droughts than usual.
She’s not looking at the camera, and she’s not looking at me, the 12-year-old holding the Kodak Brownie camera I got for Christmas. Mom is smiling at Joey, who was rescued from her pouch after his mom died on the street, and holding out her hand to the Joey we brought in.
I finished the film by walking around the yard and taking pictures to be developed on the side of the road at the drugstore.
My father was a local butcher, and although he would get up before dawn to unload animals from his truck, he was known for his compassion, willing to take home a pup in need of care. But it was Joey’s mother who cared for him and bottle-fed him. Joey stayed too close to her sometimes. One night, I woke up to her protests as Joey climbed into her bed and curled up over her face. “Awesome, there’s a bloody kangaroo on the bed!” She said in the morning.
I like that it was me who took this photo. It is now a dark-toned square with rounded corners. It is the material evidence of a moment. When my child herself witnesses her looking happy and even joyful. I can see her bushy perm and almost smell the green apple shampoo. I wear a terry towel dress with shoulder straps, the comfy clothes she wore on hot days at the weekend. On weekdays, she would wear a dark blue store dress with a front zipper, work at the butcher counter, and come home after work to prepare tea.
If you imagine me looking behind the camera, I too would be wearing a terry towel, shorts, and the top my mom bought me. My feet are bare. Never mind that the hot concrete and spiky grass on our front lawn obscure the thorns in the bindi’s eyes piercing the soles of our feet.
My mom’s life was difficult when I was taking pictures. It’s been hard all this time. I would say it has become easier and consistently more enjoyable. But that wasn’t the case. I later saw happiness on her face several times. This was mainly when she was with her grandchildren or meeting female friends who stayed nearby throughout her adult life. But the trauma and hardships, with all their sharp and rough textures, did not end for my mother.
She and I didn’t get any closer over time. If anything, our differences have become more pronounced. But we could sit together and enjoy a hot drink (hers coffee, mine tea) and a slice of lemon she made that she knew I liked, or a pastry I bought, or an eclair or pink meringue she used to like, and we would sometimes talk for hours, as long as the topic wasn’t too tricky.
When that happened she would be quiet, and if it got too serious she would yell at me and I would go quietly. The space we shared may not have been very big, and it was far from all that was between us, but I find comfort in recalling the gates of our little community where we could mostly sit and content ourselves as mother and daughter.
Some people say that my mom and I look alike. I’ve never seen it. But in that space, we might have been able to see each other for a moment.
The weather is getting warmer. I am enjoying the gentle days of my first summer since her death. With Mom gone, this season will definitely take on a new character of light and dark.