Jewellery, no thanks pass me the worry beads.

My husband has a very sensible attitude to illness: no worries allowed until we have the diagnosis and then we’ll deal with it, rather apt for a doctor. It may be indulgent, but I’m a worrier and yes, Bob Marley, I still try to be happy.
A few years ago, I was driving back to Scotland when a friend called to inform me that No2Son had had a skiing accident; no, he wasn’t OK, he was being airlifted from Klosters. My torment didn’t stop until we were in a taxi, leaving the hospital in Chur for Zurich airport. Friends were generous and tried to make light of the boy’s injuries, yes, of course a skiing accident in Switzerland is preferable to one on heather and rock at our local resort,Glenshee but I am a mother. Reason, where my children are concerned is like adding oil to water, I just can’t seem to get the mix right.

You only need to have two children to be tugged in different directions; today, No 6 Son and OnlyGirl both needed me. No6 needed to be driven to Edinburgh, to catch a previously, snow cancelled plane, and OnlyGirl, wanted me to accompany her to an MRI scan. One of the increasing joys, of being the mother of the tribe of six is the ability of senior members to help with younger siblings; on this occasion No1 Son provided me with a solution. This left me with just one priority, OnlyGirl. For an hour or so, she too, could be an only child. As it worked out, I wasn’t physically with her for very long at all, for over thirty minutes of the time, OnlyGirl was in a tube listening to the sound track of Sex in the City. “No point in worrying hen”, said the mother of the next teen to go down the tube, as she waved her daughter down the corridor. I smiled weakly and returned blankly to my book, re-reading the page for the sixth time. “Was it OK?” I bleated at OnlyGirl, when she finally emerged. She smiled sympathetically, “For goodness sake mum, I have to wait ten days for the results, let’s go”.

I’ve got plenty of happy and frown lines and yet I seem determined to give myself more. Over and above my humdrum and more stirring fears, there’s global warming and world famine and today, Haiti. This one I can salvage my ragged conscience over, by donating money to: here is the Haiti link: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/haiti-earthquake.html
With a campaigning action hat on, I can do my utter best with more worldly matters but the treasures, which Mary kept close to her heart, are more difficult.

She doesn’t love me like my real mother, was the cry of a stepdaughter,I met. I looked at the girl and thought, you’re wrong, often it’s the mundane, day to day trivialities that burden a Mum. Is she or he back, did he take his lunch, wear a coat, or take yesterday’s forgotten homework; this is the stuff that makes me grab for the worry beads. The MRI scan and putting No6 on a non stop train to London are not my daily run of the mill occurrences. No6 left grinning and his only significant comment, alluded to Harry Potter and the school train to Hogwarts. “He’ll be fine, mum,” whispered OnlyGirl and so will I.
Mothers infuriate their children, especially teenagers but we’re always here and yep, some worry beads would make an excellent birthday present. My husband has offered to buy me some diamond ones but how? - that would be a worry.