The Daily Post prompt is: Guest
She never feels like a guest,
always looking for something to do,
hands itching to help carry,
butter bread, serve the pasta.
She’s the kind who sits on the edge of her chair,
near the door;
ready to take the child to the toilet
or to be sick
or to play in the garden;
to feed the cat, pet the dog.
She eyes the kitchen constantly,
wondering about extra plates,
and where they keep the knives and forks.
Just in case.
She folds and unfolds her napkin,
unwilling to set it in her lap,
as if that small gesture pins her to her seat
and the role others have defined for her,
defuses her potential for running around after people and things,
as if by sitting and preparing to eat,
she has become just a guest.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Nothing like a mothers lov e..
chris
Infuriating but the best.
i don’t really know myself,
all in seen was a struggle to protect us
children,
or in one of her many coma’s…
Nonetheless,
i felt my mother’s lov e..
kisses an hugs chris
That’s what mothers do. Often we take it for granted.
Mothers…
just the thought bring tears to my eyes…
chris
Have a tissue. I need one too.
i seem always use my dirty hands…
sorry, put i’m sure i could steal a handful of napkins from Starbucks..
lol
hugs, may i kiss the tears away darling?
chris
What a kind offer 🙂
One of distorted magickal moments
questionable lust…
chris
Very questionable…
i love our banter!
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
This so like my mom and many other moms all over the world.
I think we all turn into a sort of archetypal mother in the end 🙂
Lovely, Jane. A poignant portrait in words.
This is more my grandmother. My mother didn’t ever get old enough to take a back seat. Ever.
😦 It’s sort of my mother now. She sometimes offers to help, but she really can’t.
My mother was always next to me in the kitchen asking what could she do, as if she didn’t know better than me! Thankfully there were always about a million other things she could be usefully doing that she didn’t ever get under my feet.
This is lovely … and I feel it’s me …
gramswisewords.blogspot.com
It could well be! I expect to end up there one day 🙂
There’s a twist I didn’t see coming. 💕
To be ‘just’ a guest for some mothers is to hand over power to the next generation I suppose.
Very true.
MY mother, but I made sure she didn’t feel like a guest – there were lots of things to do and I loved the help. Great job, Jane.
Thanks Noelle 🙂 It’s hard to make some people sit down and relax. The habits of a lifetime, I suppose.
Absolutely, Jane. I do this with my own daughter!
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
Touching.
Sad when you only realise somethings too late.
Or that you did not have them to start with.
I’ll admit, I like being a guest now, and not having so much responsibility, and thankful that it has turned out so that this can be true.
I hope I’ll be like that. I have a feeling I will. My mother had that guilt complex of so many women of previous generations, that it somehow wasn’t ‘right’ that the female head of the household should ever sit down and take things easy. I don’t have those compunctions 🙂
Me? Certainly not. I am living out the best time of my life and I think it is because I have laid down a lot of these “shoulds”, either by my own efforts or forced to, and I’m not sorry!
I can’t see me rushing round after any of my daughters. I think they appreciate that I’ve done enough of that, and if they want to invite me (when they finally have somewhere to invite me to!) I shan’t stand in their way of waiting on me hand and foot.
You bet. I can tell you it can happen, but it is very odd when your child starts looking after you, I’ll say that.
I hope I live to see it 🙂
!!! I felt the same way.
Could apply to daughter visiting their mothers too (speaking from experience…) (K)
It’s a relationship fraught with misunderstandings.
From here… “as if that small gesture pins her to her seat” to the end says it all. A time comes when our roles are defined for us.
True. And for some, it seems like a diminution of what they have been.