Share your #MotherMoments this Mother’s Day
Strong relationships between mothers and daughters and sisters are a theme in much of my writing. I’ve been surrounded by strong women my entire life—mums, grandmothers, aunties, great aunties, sisters, daughters, and friends. Stories that are passed around these circles, traditions passed down the generations, make great story fodder for historical fantasy writers. Women’s talk, secret women’s business, is the core of many of the myths I explore and magic I draw upon.
With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend (9 May), I thought it a good time to reflect on memories and stories involving mums and grand mums, and for those lucky enough to still have them around, great grand mums.
I don’t remember my great grandmothers as they passed away when I was a young child, but my daughters were lucky enough to get to know one of theirs when she came to live with their grandmother in the last years of her life.
She was a little scary, my grandmother. Tall and active, she brooked no nonsense, told it straight, drank and smoked all her life. That was my nana. Most of my memories of her are from family gatherings when she and her sisters sat around a table eating and talking. The hot topic of any conversation was politics and the union, and family. Yet every conversation paused when a grandchild came into reach for inspection and a hug. I loved that about my nana.
I have other memories, of course, but when I think of her, she comes full of conversation and opinion, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
My other grandmother, by comparison, was more the soft and cuddly type, concerned with the amount of food left on my dinner plate at the end of every meal. Family gatherings in her family were all about the children and grandchildren.
Do you have some special memories of your grandmothers you’d like to share? Comment below or head over to my Facebook page where I’m featuring #mothermoments in the lead up to Mother’s Day.
