Not only for children… I remember some years ago walking along a very familiar road in the German city where I grew up for the latter half of my childhood. It was Mother’s Day and I had been living there for some time. Working as a freelance teacher for German and English at a private language school gave me only a meagre income in those days and I was too proud to ask my mother for support. But I did not need much and was quite happy, independent and free like a bird. The sun was already warm and embracing me with strong arms, the birds were singing and a tender breeze was cooling my skin. A perfect day you would say, perfect in every way… but there was one little thing missing… money. I was broke, overdrawn and had just enough in my fridge to last me for the rest of the week. Business was slow and I only had a handful of students, the private one who paid cash in hand had cancelled for the day and was not coming again until the following week.
Passing endless rows of shop windows reminding me of Mother’s Day did not help to lift this strange heavy feeling from my heart. It is called guilt, I think…
My mother and I had a nice easygoing relationship, she was a truly free spirit like me and loved to be alone. When we came together, which was quite regular as I helped in her small household, we exchanged news, she told me about her day and amused me with yet another memory of her turbulent childhood and youth during the war. “You must write this down, Mum!” I said every time and she always gave the same answer:” Yes, I really must do that…” After the death of her second husband, my stepfather, she had become frail and seemed to lose interest in the enjoyable necessities of life like food. So I cooked for her or we went out to eat sometimes. She did not live far from my own little flat and I was walking along that old road, past my secondary school, past the butcher, who was now an estate agent, another hundred meters and I would see the row of houses where we used to live together with my sister and our stepfather… it seemed like only yesterday. Unlike me, my mother never forgot birthdays and other holidays, she valued the importance of remembering and being remembered. She expected flowers, even picked from a field, and if I came empty handed on this Mother’s Day, I would see the disappointment in her eyes and no loving words and hugs could change her attitude. The day would be ruined for her and I might just as well go back home right now… these were the thoughts running through my mind as I approached her house, trying to think of a way to buy flowers. The gardens which I passed were well fenced and only some early pansies and daisies pushed their nosy heads out of the soil. Around this busy shopping street were neat rows of trees standing high and green, our bodyguards against the dense car fumes…no wild flower was allowed to live in this controlled environment.
“Oh, God, please, give me some money so I can buy her flowers, please, whatever you can spare!”
Looking up at the sun during this intense prayer, my eyes were blinded for a second and saw swirling rings of green and purple. But the first thing my feet touched as I turned to walk on was…a 10 Euro note! I looked at it in amazement for a while, held it against the sun, hoping it was real, and after extensive examinations, there was no doubt that it was real! My wish had come true! Certainly, it was not a fortune but it would buy a nice bunch of spring flowers my mother liked so much. I thanked whoever had given me the money and went into the florist shop which just happened to be a few yards away. My proud face as I handed her the flowers was only surpassed by Mum’s happy smile. They looked beautiful on the big table in the living room and filled it with a truly “heavenly” perfume…



Sybille (Sydney) Krivenko 2007