My mother's best advice: keep short accounts — forgive easily

My favourite photograph of my mother, Linda, was taken at my wedding. We must not have realised we were being photographed; two artist friends with film cameras were capturing the kind of moments Hiraki, my husband, and I would appreciate. My mother and I stand shoulder to shoulder beneath a young tree, our necklines answering one another, our smiles peaceful and our gazes turned outwards.

The image doesn't fix a single moment so much as suggest the timeless quality of her love: gentle, spacious and alongside. Having lived in another country for longer than we lived together, I have come to experience that love through her voice on the phone and the little phrases she always uses.

She tells me to "keep short accounts"—to forgive easily; if I'm down she calls it a temporary loss of perspective; she often insists I buy flowers and "smell the daisies." Those phrases are ways of telling me to breathe: to still my thoughts or my heart and remember that I'm loved as much as any heartbreak, stress or exhaustion might weigh.

mother, linda, wedding photo, hiraki, short accounts, forgive, daisies, phone calls, love, perspective