"A Gift for My Mother" by Viv McDade

"A Gift for My Mother" by Viv McDade (2009, 13 pages)

March 1 to March 31

Viv McDade

Resources  -All you need to participate in ISSM3 is here, including links to lots of short stories, from classics to brand new ones.   

Someone not long ago asked me "what I get out of doing Irish Short Story Month".  One of the biggest things is discovering new to me writers.   In some lucky cases I have gotten to know the writers and this has greatly expanded my understanding of the creative side of writing as well as the business side.  Viv McDade is a well established writer and a sought after instructor at literary work shops and I am very happy to have had my first, it will not for sure be my last, encounter with her work.   

"A Gift For My Mother" is a deeply moving family drama.   There are  three central characters, the mother, her husband who works in a garage and their daughter, maybe ten or so.  The story is set in Zimbabwe.  The family has to struggle to make ends.   The father seems very hard working and devoted to his daughter.  I think most married couple who have ever argued about money will cringe over these poignant very real lines.

"He wiped his shoes on the mat before we went into the kitchen. ‘Hello,’ he said, as if he was asking a question, and my mother’s voice was tired and small when she answered him. He took a deep breath and slapped the little brown envelope of wages down on the table. ‘How much is there this week?’ asked my mother, and she gave a little laugh. ‘As much as I’ve earned, that’s how much.’ ‘What you’ve earned isn’t enough for us to live on.’ ‘Then die on it,’ he said, walking out of the kitchen, ‘because it’s all there is.’ "

Children hear conversations like this and it hurts them and they understand them in ways we do not realize.   Sometimes it can change the courses of their lives.   

The plot of this story is beautiful and at the same time very sad.  We come away feel sympathy for the daughter and the father and finding it hard to like the mother but in the back of our mind we know she has to be tough to keep the family going.  It is also about the importance of people's sense of how others view them and how this sometimes gets in the way of what should really matter.  I will just tell the smallest more of the plot.  The girl conceives the idea of earning some money to give to her mother through collecting wild flowers to sell.  McDade provides marvelous descriptions of the flowers (I know the story is set in Zimbabwe because I Goggled one of the references to a kind of tree I had not previously heard about) and the country side.  The tall grass was evoked so well I felt I was walking besides the girl.  

Once she has a good number of flowers, she begins to sell them to their neighbors.  I hate to do it but I have to leave the plot here as the ending is really powerful and very moving.

I read this story in New Irish Short Stories edited by Joseph O'Connor.

John Boland, the literary editor of the Irish Independent, reviewed the stories in the anthology and ended by saying ‘My two favourites, though, were Viv McDade’s A Gift for my Mother, chronicling the course of a young girl’s best intentions and as limpid and subtle as anything by Maeve Brennan.....’ His other favourite was Kevin Barry’s Beer Trip to Llandudno.

  Viv McDade has very kindly sent me two short stories to publish for the event so please look forward to them.

Author Data

Viv McDade was born in Ireland, grew up in Zimbabwe and lived in South Africa and The Netherlands before returning to Ireland. Thanks to the support of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, she completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College in 2008.  Her stories have been read on radio and published in literary journals and anthologies, including the 2011 Faber Book of New Irish Short Stories, edited by Joseph O'Connor. In 2012 she received the Hennessey XO Emerging Fiction award. She has taught fiction and short story courses at the Irish Writers Centre, and is a guest teacher at The Big Smoke Writing Factory. She lives in Dublin and is working on a collection of short stories.Viv McDade was born in Ireland, grew up in Zimbabwe and lived in South Africa and The Netherlands before returning to Ireland. Thanks to the support of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, she completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College in 2008.  Her stories have been read on radio and published in literary journals and anthologies, including the 2011 Faber Book of New Irish Short Stories, edited by Joseph O'Connor. In 2012 she received the Hennessey XO Emerging Fiction award. She has taught fiction and short story courses at the Irish Writers Centre, and is a guest teacher at The Big Smoke Writing Factory. She lives in Dublin and is working on a collection of short stories.

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