All Things In Time
By Aoife Broad
We don’t really talk about death in my family.
We feel it, deeply.
But the talking is done in silence. In the exchanged half-smiles between cups of tea. In holding someone’s gaze. In expressing care without the need for words.
My mother turned 59 this weekend.
We spent the morning together. Unwrapping presents, walking the dog, attending a parade.
We drank coffee, sitting on sun-soaked settees, and ate an orange sponge cake, garnished with slices of the fruit itself and sprigs of freshly-picked mint.
Our spread sat on the kitchen table, inherited from my mother’s family.
When she was a child, her mother would make that same cake. Nellie didn’t bake as a rule. But for birthdays, she always made an exception.
The kitchen of their Artane home would become a flurry of flour, Stork margarine, and sugar.
My mother and her siblings would keep a watchful post, closely guarding the mixing and icing bowls for the opportunity to lick them clean.
They would drink Lyons tea, from mismatched mugs, try the word search in the newspaper, and run about the yard with their scrappy dog, Bob.
They would watch the warm orange glow of the oven light in a huddle, wondering perhaps if the cake was ready now.
They would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ as a family, loud and clear and completely out of tune. Her father, Jimmy, would make a tremendous fuss. He would cheekily make fun of how old she was getting.
Birthdays in our family now are not much different.
The day before, my dad will get up at the crack of dawn and expertly make a Pavlova. 180 degrees in, down to 150, then time to cool in the oven.
In the mornings, we’ll unwrap presents.
We try to buy ‘useful’ things—like a new collapsible cooking pot for tramping, or a raincoat. No one is hard to buy for. Everyone has their niche.
Mum loves gardening, as well as a little bit of glamor.
She is not what one would call a glamorous person, only for the fact that she spends all of her time, money, and love on others.
This year, she was given a pair of earrings by my father, made by a local goldsmith. They are light, almost feathery in appearance, the silver honed to a new, leaf-like form.
She was ecstatic.
She lost them the next day, walking the dog.
My father asked to accompany me and retrace our steps. He came back with a metal detector and found them.
It’s one thing to love someone so much, to buy them jewelry. It’s entirely another kind of love to find what would otherwise be lost.
We all really just like the time together.
After presents, we’ll have a morning cake. Something that feels appropriate for daytime. Like orange. Or lemon. Chocolate feels too indulgent to pair with morning coffee.
We’ll go about our business during the day. Jobs. Walking the dog. Seeing friends.
Time is spent, quick.
At night, after a favorite dinner, we’ll tuck into that pavlova.
Cream, sugar, and meringue meld into one. We laugh, and joke, about how old we’re getting—amongst other things.
But we are getting older now.
While my parents are still relatively young, with time, I am becoming more and more concerned about how much longer we have together.
I live in a flat with friends, and I relish the chance to see my family every other day. I work remotely a lot of the time. My dad, semi-retired, is always home.
He always has this huge, welcoming grin, and an immediate offer of tea and biscuits.
We talk about politics, an old lecturer, and what the future might hold for us all.
He shuts the curtain on the dog outside, looking in. I open it again.
I see mortality in each moment now.
Not as something to be avoided, but as a simple, unbiased fact.
Some days I imagine a future without my family and feel sick. This may be in my future. I simply wouldn’t cope.
But, we all have our time.
And how we spend it with our loved ones matters most of all.
Aoife Broad is a crappy vegetarian and artist based in Wellington, NZ. Follow her on Instagram @aoifebroad.
