War-torn mothering

I am torn. I cannot decide if I was more fretful when our two eldest daughters headed off to Magaluf last Sunday amid headlines of THE sex scandal (insert Daily Mail latest – 'British holidaymakers are avoiding the Mallorca resort of Magaluf following its sex act shame') or whether their return flight home is the more worrying. The latter following the shooting down and destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people on board. The two 18-year-old loves of my life flew the nest, alone but together, for the first time last Sunday. They survived a week in Magaluf (save the stories a teenager should never share with a parent) and they will arrive at Stansted in one piece, too. Safe, tanned and exhausted and with seven days of self-sufficiency under their belt to be built on in the many years to come. I hope. For their travels home do not include the option of a flight path over a war-torn area and security is at red alert for all airlines right now, I imagine. However, my irrational fear of flying can only be accentuated by such a catastrophic tragedy as befell the world this week. I read and reread about every passenger on board. Their DNA and dental records the only forensic evidence left to identify their bodies scattered across the fields of sunflowers.

Comfort blanket
Hours beforehand they were people just like you and me, loved by their families and tweeting comments and posting pictures on Facebook before embarking on the doomed flight. I torment myself with every minute detail, every morsel of information – the politics beyond my comprehension and control, but the true-life backgrounds easy to relate to my own small life. We can all make a connection to the personal stories behind harrowing headlines and heart-breaking images – and I so often err on the realistic ‘why not me?’ rather than the blindingly optimistic ‘this will never happen to me’. The additional storm clouds gathering – with much rain, thunder and lightning – add weight to my over-active imagination and so I turn to transferring thoughts to written words, creating that necessary distraction that is my 'comfort blanket' in times of internal, personal turmoil and panic. I call my mother, 80 last week but still a little fearful of storms as if she were still eight. We talk nonsense in a reassuringly conspiratorial fashion that is the very foundation of such a relationship. Unspoken words of reassurance pass between us, her knowing I am fretful about two daughters flying home from their wild days in Mallorca and my knowing she is uneasy about the storm brewing and the lightning that changes the colour of the skies. It is evident in our jolly tones and happy chatter that we are masking our real thoughts and unfounded fears.

Careful navigation
She need not cover mirrors and hide knives in a superstitious fashion and I have no need to make empty promises to be a better person to nobody in particular in order to have our daughters delivered home safely. Life follows a path, fate takes hold and that careful navigation is as much to do with strokes of luck as it is about wise choices, caution and sensible risk aversion. I am not 18. I am a 48-year-old mother. I adore the fact that I have become a little less 9 to 5 and more footloose, but I do have responsibilities. And forever will. Growing older offers many options. Shedding ridiculous fears and unwarranted worries are sadly not among them. My mother would tell you that.