Few moments of tenderness and a lifetime of strength…
The road is choking with cars and a cold rain is hammering the ground. The darkness of the night adds darkness to the wet pavement. In a desperate attempt to accelerate time every one in their car is muttering some senseless words. The engines are revving, in vain, on this road stifled by these polluting machines, inhabited by gray robots. The tight faces, the impatient gestures, and this futile waste of time put the last strokes of sadness on this pathetic painting of our modern civilization.
After one hour on this long and melancholic highway, I arrive home. I ring on the gate and the voice of tenderness answers me: “who is it?” Every time I give the same answer: “Me”. I almost can see her face radiating when she hears “Me”. She opens the door, I get in and start climbing the stairs very slowly, sometimes I stop a little bit, trying to make her believe that she was mistaken on the identity of “Me” and that it is not “Me”. No matter how slow I climb these stairs, she remains standing still, next to the apartment door, waiting to see my face and offer me a smile with which she expresses all the feelings that go through her soul at this moment, as if she wants to tell me with this smile: “welcome my child, I hope you are not very tired. I am so happy to see you again, even if we saw others only few hours ago when you left this morning, welcome, come in...”
One smile makes me forget the long sad highway, the traffic jam, the gray faces, the exhausting work, and all the worries of the day. With one smile she transports me from the street to my home. One smile makes me thank The Creator that she is my creator.
I enter the apartment, I put down my briefcase, and all this time she is hovering around me, seeking and questioning without saying a word, how she could provide me with the rest I need. She hovers, capturing any little sign of discomfort, trying to feel my smallest needs, in order to give me what will provide me with some peace of mind. All this lasts few moments, seconds, and every second I am filled with endless affection and unconditional love.
.
Here I am, after a smile and few tender looks, a new man. As if the whole day didn’t exist! As if I didn’t drive 25kms back home! As if I didn’t have to deal with all the problems at work! As if I woke up from an oppressive nightmare, to dive into a sweet dream!
This is my mother, a smile, a look of tenderness and a fountain of peace of mind.
The strength of a man is directly drawn from the strength of the love and the depth of the tenderness his mother gave him when he was a boy and still gives him when he is a man. A mother’s love to her son is a forgiving, encouraging, liberating, reassuring and resting love. It is an unshakable and unconditional support. Her love is unmatchable and irreplaceable. And that love and that tenderness are precisely what make her son a man! The stronger the love, the stronger the man…
As life commands, one day, inundated with ugliness, I will wake up and think:
“She was an angel in our lives and she flew away.
She was a permanent smile defeating our sadness and she disappeared.
She was an abundance of tenderness filling the emptiness of our hearts and she is no more.
She was an overwhelming affection surrounding our souls and she vanished.”
Yes that day will eventually come, and then all the days, following that cursed day, will be laden with immeasurable sorrow and charged with indescribable longing for that smile, her smile.