Mothers, Sons and the Open Sea
One of Life’s Important Moments
When my mother visited the Great Ocean Road on her last trip to Australia, I tried to coax her to walk with me out across the two great rocky spans of “our” version of London Bridge.
‘No’, she said, ‘it might fall’.
I assumed that she was giving voice to her fear of heights and that of course she knew the span wouldn’t fall.
‘You’re right,’ I answered cunningly, ‘it might fall tomorrow, or it might fall in a thousand years . . . and I rather think it will be a little nearer a thousand years.’
Then, stepping closer with a smile: “Don’t tell me that your queer son is braver than you are.”
Mother just smiled back as she accompanied me out across the wide spans upon which tourist buses had once parked. And before that, for thousands of years the Girai wurrung people had enjoyed many a feast as evidenced by the ancient shell middens that still line this coast.
Two weeks later, when the first span fell into the sea, not much was said about it at our house. We simply exchanged a significant look, embraced and fell into joyous laughter. And even now that mother is gone, I can’t think of that moment without a feeling of vast and warming joy passing through my body. It was a ‘bridge building’ moment.
This story is a response to Prism & Pen’s writing prompt Bodies of Water.
