All the Pains of Loving

Chapter One: Happy Birthday

"Happy Birthday, my darling, here's your gift!" my mother smiled and placed a shiny red apple in front of me.

It's been ten years and she still is the best at gifting.
Every Mother's Day, I give her a beautifully yellow banana, and on my special day, I receive a juicy apple.

It all started when I was five and couldn't think of a better gift than to improvise with the fruit basket in the kitchen. Mum thought it was hilarious and inventive, she gave me a kiss and hug and said, "why thank you, my darling. I've been meaning to up my potassium." I could barely pronounce the word at the end but her giddy smile made the idea of banana gifting seem like discovering what was inside Pandora's box.
That year Mum gave me an apple for my birthday and promised to push back my doctor's check up for that month to the next. She said that was two gifts in one but now the tradition is fully well established and here we are today.

My seventeenth birthday is today on this gloomy, drenched Thursday, and here I am chomping away at a Cameo and listening to the beautifully greying woman in front of me. Her aqua-blue eyes alight with enthusiasm and humor as she relates the conversation she had with a client, who just so happens to be my uncle. "So I told him, Mr. Smith, you cannot cuddle the parakeet, its feathers will bend and the poor thing might suffocate. He looked at me like I was telling him to run off a bridge," she laughs. Mum is a vet at a local pet care center. She has always been an animal lover. Our two sheep, cow, burrow of rabbits and pen of chickens can attest to my mother's overwhelming compassion for farmyard creatures.

We also have three cats, Mully, Hilly, and Hermy and a Labrador named Pilly. I could barely say anything at the age of two when we got the kittens and my mum just decided to name them whatever silly word came out my mouth that day. After the cats, we got Pill, and since we already had a 'y' thing going on, it just became Pilly.

Growing up with the love and entertainment of a small zoo has thought me many things. Many valuable life lessons.
Don't leave your new and expensive night slippers in the kitchen, they will be torn to shreds.
And unless you want to chase a chicken around for three hours, don't forget to lock the pen gate. Needless to say Bessy, one of our layers, has kept me quite fit over the years.

"I don't blame Mr. Smith. You know I love Perry. She's so fluffy and you just want to squeeeeze her tight", I wrap my arms around my shoulders and rock side to side. Mum shakes her head and laughs.

"Maybe, but I was telling him about Milly. She's about to drop any day now. He could adopt one of the kittens. Some more company in the house. I know he's a bit lonely since Le," she smiles sadly.

Mr. Smith and Aunty Leanne were high school sweethearts. Love at first fight, she'd told me when I visited her after her first chemo session. When I'd asked for the story with giddy abandon for Mr. Smith's scowl from his cemented place next to Aunt Leanne's bed, she sighed and looked to her husband.
"First fight, because your aunt here was a goody two shoes in the ole days. Never got into trouble. Not a mark on her card. Nothing to complain about, always perfect. I'd known her all through high school and I'd gotten a bit bored of the good girl routine, I mean, I had detention almost every week and this girl was making it look easy being the prettiest thing with the good behavior and the good grades. I'd been crushing on her since that first day of  class. I made sure to get the seat right behind her too." he smiles proudly at my grinning face and then sighs wistfully and looks up with a smirk and his peppered moustache at my softly smiling aunt, while I stayed seated at the foot side of her bed, my hands idly massaging her swollen feet. "So, at senior prom, I mustered the whole bad boy energy and traipsed right on up to her. I was so smug, I was sure she'd take me in her arms and we'd dance until she lost her shoes. I mean after all those years, my reputation preceded me and no one would turn down ole Johnny Boy," his thumb points to himself.