There is wise counsel in the simple patterns of my mother’s life, and in the lives of those of her time.

Betty has understood the rhythms of Ecclesiastes instinctively. Married in 1944, she and Dad raised a family of eight children. They lived the seasons, accepting and understanding the terms of life without trying to run the show.

If you need an image of this understanding it is in the rows of preserving jars that gradually filled up the shelves in the pantry and overflowed into the wash house. First came the apricots and golden queens, juicy with Hawkes Bay sunshine, then the pears, stewed apples, bottled tomatoes and when the chooks were laying, eggs were preserved in jelly in a kerosene tin. A time to plant and a time to reap. Nothing wasted.

Mum sewed our clothes on a treadle Singer sewing machine, knitted our jerseys and cardigans, let down hems as we grew, made our laundry soap, and cooked meat-and-three-veg meals every day. There were 10 of us around the table and always room for one more — a neighbour playmate, an old friend, a priest who always seemed to know when Mum was cooking roast pork. Make some more gravy, add a couple more spuds around the Sunday roast, take a smaller helping so there was enough for everyone. And there always was.

Three years ago, Betty stood at her kitchen bench beside her grandson and taught him how to make Nana’s shortbread, because it was important “to have something in the tins” or to deliver some baking to comfort the sick or bereaved. Shortbread and fruit loaves remain our go-to offerings of comfort. Mixed by hand in the yellow china mixing bowl, the shortbread was baked with its trademark meat fork imprint, a practice we continue. And I have learned to bake, sew, make, deliver and retreat, falling into the rhythms of Betty’s corporal works of mercy.

At age 99 and widowed for 27 years, Betty “decided for myself” that it was time to move into a rest home. A time to keep and a time to throw away. Here, rosary beads tucked under her pillow, she has eased into the pulses of the home, supported by capable and loving carers. Her memory is rich, conversations are wide-ranging, and her sense of humour remains strong.

Recently she recalled a time when she broke the law as an unlicensed driver. Dad had purchased a short-lived, big-finned Plymouth, and Mum fortified by the St Christopher medal in the glove box, drove our old 1937 Chev from Waipukurau to Hastings, being followed all the way by a traffic officer. Some 10 years later, after a few proper driving lessons, Mum got her real driving license. A time to laugh.

As with so many women of her generation, Betty is self-effacing, preferring not to claim attention for herself. Turning 100 last year during Lockdown, she had been adamant that she did not want a party and rather enjoyed that there could be no fuss made because of coronavirus restrictions. And while my head wanted to shout: “You are worth this,” my heart whispered understanding. We know to approach her 101st birthday gently. A time to be silent and a time to speak.

I admire Mum's optimism of wanting to knit herself a cardigan “for next winter”. I suggested faint-heartedly that she could knit cotton dishcloths and give them away, so “they won’t be so heavy in your hands”. I regretted the promise I had made to her some years back, that I would finish whatever handwork was left undone.

Mum gave me a blueprint for letting go when, in 1992, Dad died six weeks shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. She said: “Keep him comfortable.” That is what she would hope for herself. A time to be born and a time to die.

Like so many, rather than being caught in the gap between the stove and the bench, the Bettys and the Jos, the Mollys, Trixies, Caths and Kathleens — our mothers, our aunties and nanas, women of their time — are making a difference, reaching eternity one batch of shortbread, one fruit loaf, one rosary, one day at a time, doing good while they live.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 260 June 2021: 7