Aged 98, Ada is proof that a mother’s work is never truly done
If your boy announced, on the very morning he was going back after half term, that his school shoes no longer fit him, I think a person might reasonably adopt the expression of Edvard Munch’s The Scream and cry, “How long exactly am I going to have to mother this hopeless creature?”
The answer, if the wonderful story of Ada Keating and her son, Tom, is any guide, is, Madam, you have the job for life!
Ada, who is an undaunted 98, has moved into the same nursing home as her 80-yearold offspring. Tom Keating became a resident at Moss View care home in Huyton in 2016, because he needed more support. Ada joined him this year “to keep an eye on him”. Very wise.
Her eldest child never married, so mother and son have a particularly close bond. They love playing games and watching Emmerdale together.
“I say goodnight to Tom in
his room every night and I’ll go and say good morning to him,” says Ada.
What strikes me, being in possession of a slightly younger Tom myself, is how the demands of the motherson relationship actually change very little over the decades. “I like him to have an hour’s sleep after his food,” Ada confides. She could be talking about putting her toddler down to have an afternoon nap in 1938.
“She’s very good at looking after me,” admits Tom, “Sometimes she’ll say ‘Behave yourself !’ ”
I’d say exactly the same for my mum, who, incredibly, shows no sign of retiring from worrying about me and my sister, even though we now have borderline-adult children of our own.
I’m not sure how I feel about tucking my Tom up in bed in 40 years’ time although, who knows, maybe he won’t be outgrowing his shoes by then.
One thing’s for certain: the maternal instinct is alive, and burning bright, for as long as we are.