Motherly Love

You don’t always have to be the one who gave birth to be called “Mum”

Words 888

I never wanted to be a mother. Recently retired, my life life was fine, more than fine, lots of friends; even some with benefits. I owned my apartment in the city, what more could I want?

Children in cafes and on planes have always irritated me and it was my reactions which reassures me I had made the best choice in becoming child free, by design.

One day, everything changed. A knock on the door one winter’s morning and nothing was ever the same. There on the doorstep stood my younger sister, the troubled one, and dare I say it, the one who sent my parents into an early grave.

From becoming a teenager, Laura had been a nightmare; first running away from school and eventually from home. There was drugs, promiscuity, and a wildness that none of the rest of the family could figure out where it had come from.

“Hi Helen,” my sister said.

I stood registering the gaunt, young woman who stood on the doorstep, before I spoke.

“Gee, look what the cat dragged in.” I hated the sarcastic tone of my voice. “Long time no see,” I looked into her dead eyes, “I guess it’s useless asking where you’ve been for the last five years?”

She gave a weak smile, showing teeth in need of dental treatment. “Hi Helen,” she repeated, her voice, raspy and nasal.

Involuntarily, I stepped back, thinking how ill she appeared, before I did the big sisterly thing and said “you’d better come in.”

I opened the door wider and my baby sister came inside, but she wasn’t alone. A few steps behind her stood a frail, smaller version of her mother.

“This is Carrie,” she pointed to the girl who clutched a tattered, dirty backpack to her chest.

The child looked malnourished, her eyes too big for her white face.

My eyes flicked from mother to daughter.

“Hello, Carrie, I’m your Aunt Helen,” I spoke softly, “how old are you, sweetheart?”

I felt sickened as I thought about the life this poor kid must have endured whilst living with a junkie mother. My thoughts raced, sensing my life was about to change.

“She’s eight,” Laura answered for her daughter, before quickly adding, “she needs somewhere to stay." My sister must have seen trepidation on my face and added quickly, “it’s just for six weeks, I’ve got a place in rehab.”

I surprised myself and no doubt my sister too, by saying, “okay, she can stay.”


Laura relapsed. Six weeks became eight, then twelve. I bought cereal I’d never bought before. I discovered eight-year-olds can eat lots of toast and spaghetti. I found wet towels on the bathroom floor and there were lights which needed to stay on all night. Carrie apologised for everything, often shrinking into herself as if expecting a violent retribution.


“Can you possibly keep her a little longer?” The caseworker asked me that question several more times as the months went by.

“What does Carrie want?” I asked her.

“She says she’s fine anywhere, so long as you’re there. Would you consider long term, Helen?" the social worker asked after Carrie had been with me for six months.

Would I? I was retired, had plans. Travel. Books I’d promised myself I’d read when I had the time. My future hadn’t included school drop offs and pick ups, homework, and chicken pox.

“There’s no obligation, Helen.”

No. Only a frightened child sitting in the waiting room, I thought.

So, motherhood arrived without all the usual fanfare of gender reveals, tiny clothes and baby equipment. It arrived with parent/teacher interviews, learning teacher’s names, with hours watching violin recitals, with curfews and driving lessons. With arguments over piercings and tiny, butterfly tattoos and heartbreak.

A real mother would know what to do. The thought would often enter my mind when feeling out of my depth after listening to another door slam shut.

After a particularly bad discussion one day over whether she could sleep over at her boyfriend’s house, I lost the will to argue and said, “I’m obviously very bad at this parenting business.”

Carrie didn’t reply for a few minutes. My words hung in the air. At last, she spoke quietly “No, you’re not bad, you’re just doing what mums do.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, they worry, overreact and they make someone’s favourite spaghetti to apologise.”

“I made the spaghetti because it was the quickest.” I glared in her direction.

“Yeah, sure you did.”

We both laughed.


On my 75th birthday, friends and neighbours filled my apartment. The clinking of a spoon against a glass called for everyone’s attention and Carrie began to speak.

“I’ve been asked to say a few words about my mother,” she began.

For a moment I looked around the room, half expecting my sister to be there.

“Yes, it’s you, Mum,” Carrie began, “everyone who knows my story tells me how lucky I was.” She walked over to me and put her arm around my shoulders.

“I was lucky, incredibly lucky to have been raised by such a selfless person,” Carrie smiled and continued, her voice full of emotion. “She never wanted to be a mum. Motherhood wasn’t something she’d planned for. But she became a mother because a frightened child needed a home. Anyone can become a parent, if life says they must, but becoming a mother when you didn’t have to — that’s love.”