Mums

My mum used to quote a poem and all I remember of it is “she’s somebody’s mother son you know, for all she’s old and tired and slow.”  I am sure it was a self -interest thing, but she had a point I reckon.
Older people seem to be despised.  Oh it will never be stated, but one only needs to look at the rush to replace older workers with younger ones.  My dad retired from the company he was a manager with, and had been with for 40 years, when the company was taken over and someone many years his junior was appointed to tell him what to do.  Never mind that he had taken a branch that was going nowhere, and turned it into a resounding success.
It is as though younger is better.  Of course younger people need jobs but younger does not automatically mean better, though it can.  There is no doubt they would be faster, but it may only mean they do irreparable damage quicker.  I think of Bearings Bank.  One employee brought down that institution.  They recklessly speculated the banks money, and then the Kobe earthquake happened.  The bank that was hundreds of years old was sold for $1.
It seems one only needs to look at leaders in other countries.  They can be old.  Really old.  Why?  It can be there is real wisdom in age. Most of these people have been there and done that.
Age though, does not automatically equate to wisdom.   We have all heard of, and perhaps know, folk that are “set in their ways.”  Thankfully there are others that seem to get better with age.  Life remains a learning curve.  They never see themselves as having “arrived.”
My mum was like that.  Ok it is true, you are stuck with family.  But I can honestly say I “liked” her more and more as the years went by.  I will never forget her last visit.  To get from Ayr to Brisbane was an adventure in itself, but we had a wonderful time together.  She caught a plane home.  In the terminal one walks down to board the plane she turned and looked at me for ages.  I did not know it but it was the last time I would see her in this life.  Shortly after she passed away and I had a song in my mind and the words were “keep the home fires burning…”
When mum died, she was visiting folk in hospital.  She had no transport, so would walk there. She was the one in need, but the needs of others mattered more to her.  She will never be canonized or eulogised and one day everyone who knew her will be gone, but the world is the richer for her presence.
She was my mum.  She was old and tired and slow but she did what she felt she had to, to the betterment of others.
You know I love you mum, and I thank you for the example you set.