I believe that today is Mothers’ Day. Indeed, I noticed this morning that the local florist was open for the benefit of anyone who had not remembered in time (or been reminded). Emma and I are technically orphans of course, as you might expect at our age. So we have no cards to send. No boxes of chocolates, no bouquets of mixed blooms. In a couple of weeks time, daughter Eva will no doubt realise that she didn’t send Emma a card, let alone a bunch of flowers, and be full of apologies. (I think she uses a different calendar from the rest of us. Her year always seems to be ten days slow.) So to Emma and me, Mothers’ Day is of academic interest only. We honoured our mothers, as the good book tells us we should. We visited them often, and cared for them in their old age (if only by proxy in may case). Our mothers bore us and dutifully raised us. But in neither case, it has to be said in all honesty, was there any real show of affection, which is perhaps why Emma and I clung to each other so tenaciously. If I think of motherhood, I think of Emma.[P.S. I was wrong about Eva. Emma has taken off to meet her for dinner half-way between our two villages to pick up her present.]
