When I first read The Road, I was deeply disturbed by the mother's apparent abandonment of
her son. As a mother myself, I couldn't help but feel shame and disgust, an almost physical
repulsion, even though she's only a character in a book. However, after considering the
novel from a Darwinist perspective, my interpretation of her actions took a complete 180degree turn. I no longer see her as a bad mother abandoning her child; now I see her
abandonment as the ultimate act of love and sacrifice. Her actions most likely saved both the
husband and the son from imminent death. I see her actions as the most noble self-sacrifice
possible, the very definition of parental investment. She knew they could not all survive, and
as a woman she was a liability with the roaming bands of militants bent on raping, torturing,
and cannibalizing anyone weak enough to fall in their path of destruction. Furthermore, the
mother and father didn't have enough bullets to commit suicide as a family, the quick way,
so she did the only thing she could: she sacrificed herself. She knew her husband's desire to
keep both wife and child alive could not be sustained. He had limited resources, and she
couldn't watch him struggle to choose between saving one or the other. She also knew that
she couldn't kill her own child, even if it was in his own best interests to keep him from
suffering at the hands of the cannibals. By leaving, she enabled her husband to focus his
survivalist behaviors on their son, and also empowered him to leave their home and take to
the road. When McCarthy says, "the coldness of it was her final gift," I don't think he means
she was hateful or unemotional. I think she intentionally masked her emotions and didn't let
her sorrow show to save her husband from that pain. Had she cried, or said I love you, it
would have tortured him even more. She left without saying goodbye because she couldn't
bear to break her child's heart, or see the pain on her husband's face. By leaving quietly, she
allowed them to just let her go so they could, in turn, take to the road together. I hope this
poem captures the mother's sacrifice, a gift to the future of the human race.
Her Final Gift
—found poem by Allison S. Walker, excerpted from The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006).
New York: Vintage, pp. 12, 21, 27, 28, 32, 42, 56, 57, 58, 11, 74, 75, 77, 89, 94, 114, 130, 166,
196, 213, 261, 268, 278, 279.
Just remember the things you put in your head are forever.
Like ancient frescoes
entombed for centuries
suddenly exposed to day.
Ever is a long time / ever is no time at all.
In the night thousands dream
worlds rich or fearful
such as might offer themselves
but never the one to be.
By day the banished sun circles the earth
like a grieving mother with a lamp.
Borrowed time and borrowed world
and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.
I didn’t bring myself to this.
I was brought. And now I’m done.
You have stories inside that I don’t know.
You’d rather wait for it to happen.
But I can’t. I can’t hold my son
dead in my arms. I thought I could.
Is there a being within you of which you know nothing?
They say women dream of danger
to those in their care and men
of danger to themselves.
But I don’t dream at all.
My heart was ripped out of me
the night he was born
so don’t ask for sorrow now.
Death is not a lover.
Oh yes
oh yes he is.
Everything uncoupled from its shoring.
Something imponderable
shifting in the dark. The earth itself
contracting with the cold.
For all she knew
the world grew darker daily.
This is my child. That is my job
like some ancient anointing. So be it.
Evoke the forms. Where you’ve nothing else
construct ceremonies out of the air
and breathe upon them
the names of things one believed to be true.
Cobble together some passable
ghost. Breathe into it
and coax it along with words of love
the sacred idiom shorn of its referents
drawing down like something
trying to preserve heat.
Offer it each phantom crumb
and shield it from harm
with your body.
You have to carry the fire.
I have to go.
The coldness of it was her final gift.
A flake of obsidian
an atom thick. A flash
of knives in a cave.
If only my heart were stone.