My mother’s story

side?  Why this need to compare
your lot to that of others.’  
To my
She gives me a wan
tree.  It was not really our tree
had planned for a long time that it was ours.’
has an unlimited supply.  The
wastepaper basket beside her chair is filled to overflowing with these tissues.  I think of them as my mother’s tears, the
ones she can no longer shed.
‘Everyone everywhere was chopping down trees for firewood,’
my mother goes on.
‘I woke my husband and he went outside and chased them
away.  By then the tree was half
My mother hesitates, whether
for the next dab of her nose.
brought with us things.  I brought
something to eat for it.’
and words.
 ‘Once there
came beggars to the door.  My
mother offered them what we were eating. 
black market and they did.’
My mother stops again, as if to take stock of her
a crumb more.  People started to
I feel a slight thrill inside at the mention of the word
‘hate’.  My mother rarely owns up
to such a powerful emotion. 
butter.  Everybody got their share
eat it.’  My mother’s eyes gleam
with the memory.
body was so hungry.  You have to
eat a bit at a time.’  
She looks
‘I had somewhere a photo of myself and I was that
skinny.  Never in my life have I
been as skinny as then.  There were
family bring them here.  Let them
come.”  Because there’s nothing in
the city.  In the country, not
so.  In Heilo where we had cousins,
feed them here.
little cart behind his bike.’
The story shifts here. My mother has told me that my
two years old, traveled.  My mother
My older sister who died at five months of age during the
Hunger winter of 1945.  I have
wondered what she would be like had she survived.
not the second.  

4 thoughts on “My mother’s story”

  1. I am currently not working and have not had any money go into my account now for almost a month. We have very little food in the house and though we are eating less than usual I am content. Why? Because the last few days the Universe is sending me messages like this and I realize how much I have. Thanks for being a part of the message.

    The bottom picture of your sister is absolutely precious. I am sure it brought your mother comfort over the years.

  2. I think it used to annoy my parents when I said I was starving because I have never starved a day in my life and rarely have I even gone hungry for any length of time unless I was ill and the hunger then was a good sign, an indication that I was on the mend. My parents both came from big families with easily a dozen kids in each family—needless to say I can’t remember the precise ratio—and they were dirt poor. They never made a meal of the past when talking about it but it affected them and my dad in particular swore that his kids would never do without like he had and so you can imagine how it irritated him whenever I said I was starving but it was just hyperbole. There was always food on the table. It wasn’t always to my taste—I was something of a fussy eater—but there was always food. My parents were both from Lancashire in the north of England so what we were served was not what my peers typically got—I never tasted haggis until I was a grown man—but it was every bit as unhealthy. Her speciality—and no one has ever been able to best her—was mince and dumplings, suet dumplings. Over the years Carrie has made a number of valiant attempts but she can’t compete with my idealised memories. What she presents me with is always tasty enough but since she’s always aiming to watch my diet it’s never quite right.

    My mother was a cheery soul but I’m not sure she was an optimist. She might’ve been once upon a time but life had kicked that out of her. Too many disappointments, including me. Unlike you I was the firstborn and she’d waited over twenty years for me. My dad blamed the war for that. Lack of good food. Once the war was over and they started eating better then Mum fell pregnant. I’ve no idea if there’s any truth in what he says. My dad’s logic was often flawed. He reasoned that the existence of the Ten Commandments was proof in itself of God’s existence: it was a perfect law and could not therefore be the product of imperfect minds. I never argued with him. Not about stuff like that.

  3. I have been working out the histories of some characters who would be of my parents and then grandparents age for a story. I was born in 51. They did go through so many more devastating times than our generation (so far).
    Two World Wars, a global depression. These were escaped by so few. Not like today where there are a lot of bad things that happen, but the majority (okay: maybe more affluent majority) only really read or hear of the bad stuff in the news.

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