Clippers

Clearing out my mother’s effects I came across her gardening things – which included about fourteen sets of secateurs; clippers for pruning bushes. Some were practically brand new.

Why so many? I puzzled over this for a while before it hit me. As my mother grew steadily weaker she became less able to prune and snip her shrubs, but instead of facing that she chose to see the clippers as at fault. They were no good anymore, otherwise they’d still cut! Buy another one!

I wondered at this piece of mental gymnastics, designed to shield her from her fears. And I wondered how often we all do that. We all have a tendency to buy something to “solve the problem” rather than facing our real situation.

I could have wished something a little better for her as she moved towards eternity.