Now that I'm a mother, I can at last see my own mother in me | OPINION

By Clementine Ford
Updated December 2 2016 - 7:45pm, first published 7:38pm
"Now I am a mother and I have learned to see my face through different eyes again."  Photo: Stocksy
"Now I am a mother and I have learned to see my face through different eyes again." Photo: Stocksy

It's been almost a decade since my mother died, but her shadow remains forever attached to my own. My mind's eye can perfectly recall what she looks like (although in my memory she hovers somewhere around the age of 42, which is a full fifteen years earlier than her death). I hear the timbre of her voice there too, the way she rolled her South American "arrrrrs" and the passionate way she yelled at characters on the television. I remember her smells through the vast array of perfumes that sat on her dresser, their glamorous names sitting rich in one's mouth - Samsara, Calleche, Shalimar, Insolence. Even now, I'll stop dead in the middle of the street if someone walks past leaving a hint of her on the breeze. My fingers can still feel the pillow creases that lined her face every morning and the coarse, darrrrk hair that fell onto her shoulders.