the crone

I went to see my daughter perform in The Mikado on Saturday.

It was great to see her on stage. Poised. Confident. Having fun.

Part of a really quite ambitious school production.

She was one of the Japanese maidens, and to see her singing in the chorus was just lovely.

It’s hard to remember now how I once held her in my arms.

Soothed her eczema with various ointments and bath oils 6 times a day. Sat by her cot on long feverish nights.

Stayed with her in hospitals. Sped along roads with her in ambulances (I still can’t talk about those occasions without crying).

I once gave her resuscitation after seizure when she stopped breathing.

Now I see her on the stage. And everything is ahead of her.

And I am so very, very thankful to have her.

A very poignant moment, watching her (to borrow from the Gilbert & Sullivan chorus she was singing) ‘We wonder …oh, we wonder, what on earth the world can be?’.

Here it is — give it a listen. Comes a Train of Little Ladies

‘…Comes a train of little ladies, from scholastic trammels free

Each a little bit afraid is, wondering what the world can be

Is it but a world of trouble — sadness set to song?

Is its beauty but a bubble bound to break ere long?

Are its palaces and pleasures fantasies that fade?

And the glory of its treasures shadow of a shade?

Schoolgirls we, eighteen and under, from scholastic trammels free,

And we wonder, how we wonder, what on earth the world can be?’

Makes me sob just hearing it.

That’s how sentimental motherhood has made a tough old goth like me.