a mother's ode to liam payne

One Direction have been there for the entire time I’ve been a mother. They were the soundtrack to my sons upbringing.

Liam Payne from One Direction has died. I’m at work when I find out; an alert on my phone from a mainstream news service tells me the news. The photos of his body are still on TMZ when I click through to the site. I see his tattoos and close the browser, my mind blank.

I was 32 when One Direction was formed. I was in labour at St Thomas’s Hospital, opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, at the time Nicole Scherzinger and Simon Cowell were telling the five boys – still children, most of them – that they were being given a second shot at the show. That even though they’d been kicked off individually, they were going to form a band and get to compete again. I only learnt this later; the X Factor wasn’t yet on air then. It didn’t start screening until my own son – my first child – was weeks old, settling already into a life where his mother adored him, was obsessed with him, really, during those early years, but also constructed her identity through music and movies and books and gigs and being with friends who loved her but didn’t understand her affection for silly things like boy bands. 

I watched a lot of X Factor that year. I’ve always loved a talent show, and that year I wasn’t going out much. I couldn’t afford to – we were broke – and I had a newborn baby to hold, to feed, to try and fail to convince to sleep. I sat on the sofa and I watched the X Factor. Not always, not every night it was on. I didn’t see all the fan commentary, and I was away in Australia, visiting my family, doing the baby tour, for a chunk of the season. But I was back for the final weeks. I don’t remember if I voted for them in the final, but I know I voted at some point, debating internally about the wisdom of spending the money for the text, ashamed to be wasting my rapidly depleting parental leave pay, but filled with urgency at the thought I’d leave it too late and wouldn’t be able to vote at all. When they came third, I wasn’t too disappointed. I had my own life to get on with, so I did. 

The only time I saw them in person was when I was a volunteer performer at the Olympic closing ceremony in 2012. My friends and I had finished our part and were sitting front row in the VIP section reserved for Olympic officials and heads of state. When One Direction stopped in front of us, we waved and yelled their names, and they waved back as they danced about on the back of the flatbed truck. We cackled and yelled and laughed. It was a highlight of the night for us all after months of juggling opening and closing ceremony rehearsals and work and childcare. 

I’ve never really thought about why I love One Direction, but I think it’s because they’ve been there the entire time I’ve been a mother. They’ve existed as a group and then as a memory and a soundtrack the whole time I’ve had and held my son. 

Sometimes my husband will tease that I wouldn’t say no if Harry Styles came knocking. I tell him no – Andrew Garfield maybe, but not Harry. I’ve always felt unsure of why that is. I literally cannot bring myself to picture it. Harry was always one of my favourites, as he is and was for so many fans. He’s pretty, he seems like a genuinely good person, funny, a young guy who doesn’t immediately make me want to run away. But while I see the man in his thirties, making his own career – an adult, certainly – I also see the boy from 2010, and I remember the baby I held as One Direction stumbled their way through that X Factor season and out onto the world stage.

I always thought they would get back together, eventually. I thought I’d outlive them all – I’m 14 years older than the oldest member, after all. I thought they’d be there for my whole life, the whole of my motherhood.

I gasp when I read that Liam is dead. It’s relatively early on a Thursday morning in Sydney, where I’ve lived for the past 10 years. Only one of my colleagues has arrived in the office. She looks up when she hears my sharp intake of breath. I whisper the news to her, uncertain if she’ll care at all and knowing she won’t understand why this news matters to me. 

“Liam from One Direction has died,” I tell her.

She’s shocked, but in the way everyone is shocked when someone so young dies. The lost years, the lost potential; the grief of and for the parents whose child is gone. Ten minutes later, after more of our colleagues have arrived, our student media assistant will turn to the person next to her and ask, “Are you a One Direction fan?” and I’ll lean forward, talking across the rows of desks between us to say, “I am” while our other colleagues mumble, “No, why?” And I’ll make a sad face to show that I know, and she’ll make a sad face to show that she is sorry, and our colleagues will be shocked and surprised and will go back to their work as if nothing has happened at all. 

When I get in my car at the end of the day, I binge-read posts on Instagram, on Reddit, and scroll for five awful minutes on TikTok. The first video is from his girlfriend, posted last week. I read the comments and regret it. I let tears fill my eyes and stare at myself in the mirror, embarrassed and unashamed all at once. Then I put on some music – not One Direction, I can’t – and drive home. 

Just before I leave the car park, my eldest son texts me. 

“Someone from One Direction has died,” he tells me. 

He knows the story, that he was born the night the band was formed. He saw me take his younger brother to see Harry’s last tour, and Louis’ too, and saw me go to Niall’s show alone as I couldn’t afford to take his brother with me. 

He doesn’t care about One Direction, but he knows I do, and so he tells me and lets me be sad for a moment when I hug him later that evening at home, still his mum but so very sad because someone else’s child has gone.

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who wrote this?

Davina Russell is a writer and editor living in Sydney on Bidjigal land. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, including personal essays on pop culture, memory, obsession and mental health.