death | Mum In The Madhouse

death

The Pyrex Dish

Even as I grew up and had a family of my own, my mum always encouraged me to cook and I realised that she had given me a firm foundation in the kitchen and love of seasonal produce. I know you are only a dish, but I cried a little last night for a woman that I miss so much and then when I saw you in the bin this morning I cried a little more for the time in my life you represent.

Yes, I know my mum would be saying “it is just a dish Jen” and indeed it is, but also a thousand memories were baking inside it and it will always hold a place in my heart.

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A Memory

As I walked in to the wool shop, I caught a small hint of a smell that automatically made my heart lurch and turn sharply for the door.

It was a heady scent of days long past and the sun streaming in through my mothers bedroom window. Little motes fluttering in the sunshine from the talcum powder.

I am sat on the bed, watching attentively as she pampered and preened. Apply makeup, gre

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Saying good bye

Earlier in the week I attended the funeral of a woman who inspired and nurtured me as a teen. She died on Christmas Eve, just like my mum last year and it was a pretty surreal experience. She had been ill for a short while, even so her death came as a complete shock to me, some people you think are just invincible.
I do not think that there are enough words in this world to describe the inspirational woman, who has left us all. There was not even standing room at the funeral and when the whole of the congregation stood to sing Don Williams, You’re my best friend I could almost feel her stood smiling on insisting that we were not flat and to sign from our tummy. I managed to hold it together right until the end when Her husband Johnnie stood as they played Marty Robbins, My Woman, my Woman my Wife, everyone then clapped as they closed the curtains at the crematorium.

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Life

Sometimes life is hard, sometimes I struggle to just see clearly through the fog that is the shroud of my day to day activities. Sometimes when you add in to it pain, recovery and recouperation it is hard to see much past the end of my arm, let alone to the coming weeks and months.
I underwent pretty major surgery on Friday 1 July and anticipated that I would be fine and well and back out of the hospital over the weekend. Oh how wrong was I. I finally was realised the following Friday at 9.30pm after much discussions and some tears on my part as I was missing my family. My surgery was much more complex than originally anticipated and has meant that I am unable to eat solid food for approximately another four weeks and am very much in pain, however, those of you with young children will understand when I say that they have no understanding of concept gentle.

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Bittersweet

I have been trying to keep myself busy these last few weeks. Trying to avoid the feeling that has been building in my chest, the rising emptiness that has permeated my whole being. I dare not stop, I dare not let this feeling invade for the tears will start to fall and I fear that they may never stop.

Perspective, yes that is what I have needed. It is hard to admit that I am still grieving, that I am scared and that I am so frightened at the moment. That living my life can be so bloody hard. That sometimes the fear paralyses me, that I want to curl up in a little ball and not to go on.

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The Family Home

It isn’t uncommon these days for people to move in and out of houses and to buy, sell, relocate and leave home. So it is pretty unusual that we have a family home.

So let me tell you the wonderful story behind 132.

When my Dad was a young lad he was an apprentice at British Shipbuilders and was sent on secondment to Shell, at their Milford Haven site in Wales. Back then my Grandad and Grandma lived in a council house and my dad would travel on his motorbike to Wales every Monday Morning and come back one weekend a month, but he always sent his wages home to his Mum for her to put in his account.

One month he returned home, only to find out that he didn’t live there anymore! Yes it seems that my Grandad and Grandma had moved whilst he was away and he hadn’t received their letter in time. So the people who had moved in to the council house gave him the address of the new house that his parents were living in.

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A lump in my throat

he shops are filling up with card for Mothers Day and each time I see or hear it mentioned it brings a lump to my throat. For the first time in my entire life, I do not have a mother to celebrate on Mothers Day and that makes me unbelievably sad. I want the world to stop and take notice of me. I didn’t want to my my mother in law a card, although today I did and to give MadDad his due, he said thank you and then made me cry by saying he understood just how hard that was for me to do.

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