The poem 'My Mother at Sixty Six' depicts a loving relationship between poet and her mother. It also presents a universal fact of a person growing old and dying.
The poet is grieved to see her mother aging. The poet is going to Cochin to board a flight leaving her old mother behind. The mother is sitting beside her in the car and the poet is pained to see her mother 's pale face which resembles like a corpse. She tries to dispel such painful thoughts from her mind by looking outside at the young trees and merry children coming out of their homes. The image of the trees and the children are in contrast to the mother's paleness, frailty and lifelessness.
Once she reaches the airport, she again looks at her mother from a distance and observes her pale and lusterless face which is looking like a late winter's moon. While she looks at her old mother , her childhood fear of losing her mother is revived. She does not express her emotions in front of her mother , rather looks at her with smiling face. Her smiling face and her parting words "See you soon, Amma" is her way of offering a moral support to her old mother.