Included in what is, perhaps, a type of moral coercion, the dying mother's phrase sends a message to her sons that exhorts them to come to her death bed because of their filial duty.
In "The Old Woman's Message," the aged and worn woman, who lies on her deathbed, bemoans the fact that her sons, Polin and Manual, are not like the fruit of a tree that falls to the ground, from which the trunk of this tree would then nourish itself. Instead, they are likened to the fruit which a bird pulls from a tree and carries off as food.
As she lies dying, this mother wonders what is preventing her two sons from coming to her at this hour of her need. From these sons the mother does not want anything that they have earned--"Let them keep the price of their labour"--she simply wants to see them before she dies. This wish is expressed as she claims the moral right to have them watch over her because of their being her children: "their eyes are mine." Presently, however, their eyes which are the windows to their souls, do not nourish the "trunk" as they should.
The last wish of the woman to look into the eyes of her children before she dies will assure this dying woman of the continuity of life as the sons will, then, carry some of her life in them as they go on. This is the true meaning of her message: The sons must come to their mother out of moral obligation in order to continue the natural progression of their family's inherited lot.
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