Maternal Instinct

You failed today, grandly and spectacularly. I watched you on that stage as they announced the election results, stood tall, pristine and stoic, the youngest and brightest button amongst a load of stuffed shirts. No other voice had been as honest, genuine, or well-meaning; no other campaign had been forged with such heart.

Still, you lost.

By a landslide.

And a little dark part of me was happy that you had...

... and I call myself your mother.

We drive home, a thick silence set between us, fractured only by the pulse of the windscreen wipers and the brown noise of the slush beneath our wheels. You do not want to talk about it. You do not want to make sense of it. You sit, head back against the headrest, unflinching as the lights of your beloved city stroke your face in gold and meaningless undulation. You are consumed, understandably, by the numb of it all—a stranger to such brackish tides.

*

Growing up, you were the sort of child that all mothers dreamed of. You slept well, ate everything, studied conscientiously, worked hard, and were endlessly kind to everyone around you. I would drop you off at nursery, at your school gates, at your university halls, and you would stride in and away from me with no discernible backward glance, excited by the independence, confident in who you were, carried by a boldness that never wavered. Never has.

Your sights have always been singular and certain. As you entered the world, you were like a salmon fighting its way upstream. Pink and lean, I held you in my arms, and you cried out into the world with purpose, your violet eyes searching to see before they had even coloured. I carried you home in a basket, half believing you could have made the journey alone.

From the first time I saw you, I knew that yours would be a great destiny, and mine would be its bystander. It has been a strange peace to come to terms with. I had prepared for many things as I faced into the role of motherhood. I was not naïve. I knew human connectedness was an unpredictable alchemy, and I, well-weathered, was emotionally braced for its extremes. Whatever the melting pot of humanity had mixed for us, I was ready to face all of it, but what I never foresaw was my redundancy.

Of course, I know the ultimate role of all mothers is to equip their offspring for a life without them. It is, after all, life's natural and bittersweet order. I just hadn't reckoned on the immediacy of realising this end.

No matter what life threw at you, you always coped. What would have shaken any other child you processed matter-of-factly and courageously. No scuffed knee, torn clothing, illness, hardship, or lost friendship ever saw you bow down to lick a wound. Your chin was always raised, your sights dead set. No buzzing fly was ever going to interfere with your target, your grand life vision. You swatted away all of life's everyday problems, turning them into smudges undeserving of your attention.

*

As we drive down the lane toward our house, I want to reach out and touch you. To comfort you after your loss, but I know I can annoy you with how I faff. I don't mean to. I just have this ocean of love inside me that spills out clumsily and awkwardly. I guess, without a receptacle to need it, all great love can make a mess.

I blink on our indicators, and we turn into the drive and roll slowly up to our house. I pull on the handbrake, turn off the engine, and gaze at the side of your head as you stare into the distance, into its dark, lost to it. I wait. Without the motion, the rumble of the wheels and the swipe of the wipers, the silence lies heavy, holding us still until it finally percolates through to you, disrupting the connection to wherever you are lost.

You turn to me. Your eyes are haunted. You search my gaze, hunting for an answer you don't instinctively know. I don't have any answers. But I do instinctively know how to respond. I seize the moment and reach out to touch your arm. Your reaction is immediate, and you crumple toward me, squashing your pristine jacket as you fling your arm around me to hold me tight. I cradle your head against my chest and inhale every breath of you. I stroke your cheek. I stroke your hair and rock you as you sob softly into the quiet.

*

Let's sit here a while in the cold and dark, my love; you can cry, and I can feel bad about how happy I am.