A love that blooms all around us

TWO little magnolia trees are in bloom in our walled garden — pale lilac flowers on bare branches like points of pure light in the cold air. They’re called ‘Leonard Messel’ and were a gift from my parents when we created the special space from scratch.

This week, I rediscovered them, hobbling out at last on my stick to see what’s come up. Vinca, daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths, hellebores — and the fragile beauty of the magnolias. The sight lifted my spirits. And with that ecstasy came a silent prayer, as the two dogs ran around and my husband picked up fallen twigs from the last storm.

Contemplating the fledgling glory of the garden, my thoughts were with my parents (95 and 92 now) who have taken such care of me all my life, who recently stepped in with incredible generosity and speed to help a family member with a problem, and whose faces light with joy when they see their three great-grandchildren who (they say) keep them going.

My silent prayer was for them, of course, but it was also an inner cry of gratitude, that I should have been so lucky to be born to those two, Gladys and Ted, who’d describe themselves as ‘ordinary’ Liverpool people. But, to me, extraordinary.

Tomorrow is Mothering Sunday, and writing this column makes me all-too-aware that many people are not so fortunate. I have had so many letters from sad souls whose lives have blighted by bad mothers. Of course, they were damaged in their turn (as the poem by Philip Larkin points out) and ‘man hands on misery to man’ in horrible cycles of unhappiness.

But never forget the joy. Those not blessed with a wonderful mum might still allow themselves some poignant consolation because the light of family love still shines everywhere.

Nothing can dim its beauty — which I will celebrate tomorrow with my mother and my daughter, who has been so transformed by the precious gift of motherhood.