Wild Horses and the Mother I did not know

(right) A picture I was given this week of my mother aged 17

Next week my mother would be 81. This past week my brothers and I traveled to west Wales at the headlands above Swan Lake Bay to a lone, white-washed farmhouse where my mother was born. On those green cliff tops we scattered her ashes.

My cousin, who also grew up on that windswept farm, joined us. She shared a story with us from my mother's childhood that has forever changed how I think of my mother.

My mum had four boys. She was forced to give up her first child from her first marriage when she married my father, with whom she had three more children. Both of my mum's marriages ended in divorce. She would tell us that she never regretted not having a lasting romantic love in her life. “I have you boys” she would always say.

I have always defined my mother by her role in raising us. She struggled to protect us from the outside world and to prepare us to function in it. But she had more hurdles than most. With no car, 3 part-time jobs and 3 children to raise, life was complicated. She kept a roof over our heads although we were sometimes hungry. I specifically remember as a child, complaining when all we had to eat was bread, not understanding how painful that must have been for her to hear. This is the mother I knew, that I have perhaps retrospectively idolized.

Twice my mother fled the farm where she was born. Both times she was pregnant and left to marry. Had she stayed, her brothers would have inherited the farm and she would have been forced to be their servant. Urban poverty was the price of freedom for my mother.

As I stood there on that Pembrokeshire hilltop overlooking the sea, absorbing the roar of waves and being pummeled by the ocean wind I could feel the power of nature that my mother grew up with. We were to scatter mum’s ashes at a place where mum would’ve been able to see both the farm where she was lovingly raised and the ocean where she learnt to swim.

It was here that my cousin told me the thing I’d never known of my mother. As a teenager, my mum would come home from school, do her chores and rush off to ride her horse across the cliff tops. More than that, she became known throughout the area as a “girl” who understood horses. People from all over the area would bring their horses to Eastmoor farm.

They would hand the reigns of a young horse that could not be trained to my mum. They would probably go into the farmhouse and have a mug of tea with my grandparents. My mum, June, would take the wild horse across the fields and over the bumpy headlands along the coast. A couple of hours later she would return to everyone waiting, and as my cousin had heard it, she would dismount the horse she’d broken-in and simply say, “There. It’s all done.”

This is a story of my mother that I never imagined, but one consistent with the mother I knew: someone who had a deep bond with nature, someone who was strong and powerful, and someone who could not simply follow the rules set down for her. I now think of the choices she faced, and the life and the skills that she was forced to leave behind her. And when I think of mum now I no longer remember her the same way. I think of the place where we scattered her ashes and her youthfully galloping over those wind-ridden headlands.

The Day the Cat Stood Still, as told to Havana and Ilyana

Having tucked them in and kissed them goodnight, I turned out the light in the girl’s room.
Sitting atop a chair in the kitchen was Milou, our family’s long-haired black cat.

It really was no surprise to me when he asked for a ride to our local coffee shop. He was familiar with all penguins, monkeys, the lion and the other animals that spent their whole days at the café: socializing and on the odd occasion ordering some food or drinks. And Milou was also familiar with the half-mile hike that entailed getting there. Sure, he has two more legs than us, but they are somewhat shorter.

So we agreed to head out together in my truck. As I put the key in the door, we exchanged glances over who was going to drive. This evening Milou deferred: so I took the wheel. With the two of us buckled in, we headed down Walnut Street, making small talk, like one does.

Craning his neck to see out the window, Milou reminded me that a stop sign meant you’re supposed to come to a full stop. He mentioned it without eye contact, casually but with authority. After another small criticism of my driving, I asked if he knew anyone else who doesn’t have a driving license that like to teach Drivers’ Ed.

Milou apologized. I asked him why he was so nervous. He’d not left the house in months. Perhaps he’d gotten agoraphobia. “Nope” he responded.

Lately he’d been fighting a lot with Kitten, our other cat, but Milou denied that this was making him anxious. “Well, what is it?” I persisted. “You’ll see” he said.

As we stepped into the café, it was as if all the animals had been waiting for Milou. Paws went up, and a long receiving line of high fives greeted Milou. “Hey!” Milou said to a squirrel with his wee paw up as high as he could reach. It wasn’t like Milou knew half the critters he was greeting, but this was him, all-walking-around-on-his-hind-legs, acting bold. A distant relative of the same day-time cat who grumbles every time he’s picked up and carried around by the four-year old.

We settled down at a table with our drinks: coffee and a large cup of milk. As Milou drank his coffee, he explained how it helped keep the shine on his coat. I've kept a fairly long list of things I do not like about Milou, and his vanity was near the top. But then, he was family. Unlike my children, Milou was not likely to grow, emotionally. We are into the 14th year of our relationship and he is just as completely dependent on me now as the first day I picked up that small ball of fur that he once was.

“So what’s going on mate?” I enquired. He slid his coffee mug aside and edged up to me. “You see that grey short-hair in the corner?” I turned and saw a cat sitting in the corner by themself. “That’s my date!” I looked at Milou and my scrunched-up face asked, “Whaaat?”

“Hold on; I gave you a ride here for you to go on a date?” was my first question, followed quickly by, “Hey you don’t think I’m sticking around to give you a ride home, do you?” Which was followed by, “why aren’t you going over to say hi to her?”

Milou’s chest deflated, “ I’m nervous dude, this is my first date in years!” He stood there frozen. He stood up on the chair, his front paws perched against the table, like a small furry statue. Perhaps somewhere in the world there is such a statue.

Then he broke out of his empty stare. “Well, and to answer your other question” he continued, “for your information, cat dates are not long affairs.” Mmmm. I may have stepped over the boundary of polite conversation when I asked if a cat date is the same as two cats making a kitten. I can still see the look of disgust and contempt on that whiskered face. Hoping to bridge the awkward-gap I’d just dug, I asked where Milou’d met her.

Milou reached into his fur and pulled out some kind of smart phone. “What is that?” I asked. Milou looked down, “Oh, it’s a cell phone”
“No, no, no. I mean, you have a pocket in there” I pointed. “It’s a coat, it comes with pockets” Milou replied, then tapped his touch screen with a single extended claw.

He leaned over to me, “Check this out: Kittencupid.com. It’s a pretty popular site. It shows everything you’d want in a partner, but of course with cats the likes and dislikes, they’re pretty much identical on everyone’s profile. Location is the main thing I look at. It’s true, the site is probably a front run by Purina. You can chat online and if you mention dinner or lunch, a pop-up comes up advertising Purina’s new line of canned food. Well, if you can get past the corporate stuff, sometimes you can meet someone special.”

“Oh and on your other question,” Milou stated, “Cat dates are pretty much taking a whiff of the other party’s behind. She sniffs you, you sniff her and if it’s all roses, so to speak, then we’re on for a second date.”

For a minute, I got cynical and showed my age, “Why do you have to go online, on a computer to find a date? What’s wrong with the neighborhood cats?”

“Well, that’s okay for you guys, but with cats its different. Dating in your neighborhood, well, there’s a lot of baggage with that. Everybody’s about territory. You lift a leg, you mark and you don’t want anyone to invade that space. Online dating removes those issues.”

We sat there quietly mired in the pleasant absurdity of it all. I was trying to get my head around the whole idea of online dating, Milou was trying to get his furry head around his current online date.

Eventually he bit the bullet. And like he’d promised, the whole thing was over in a flash.

“Well, how did it go?” I asked, as we dumped our cups in the trash, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “We’re on!” he said as he rubbed his front paws together with a typically cat-like subdued glee.

As we crossed the threshold into our family home, Milou plopped back down onto all fours and went into the girls’ room and got up on their bed and curled up.

And tomorrow, I will tell the girls this story, and one daughter will be wide-eyed with mouth gaping and the other will act like I’m making this story up. Well surely, it’s too absurd to be untrue.