Losing a loved one at any time is hard for a child to understand and process, my boys Grandma (my mum) died suddenly and unexpectedly on Christmas Day when they were 4 and 5. My children are the most important people in my life and helping them deal with the death of a loved one was my number one priority.
This year is the first year that I feel comfortable celebrating Mothers Day without a mother. It is over three years since Mum died and yes I still miss her, but I no longer pine for her company like I used to. My new normal is actually becoming normal. Now that is a sentence I never thought I would write!
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
My mum never did anything by half and Christmas was one of those things that was just magical in my home growing up. When I was younger the decorations and tree would always go up on 19th December, the day prior to my birthday and there would be crape streamers strung across the ceilings and paper bells and balls hanging from them. It was a real family affair.
Christmas decorating took a back seat after my Dad died, that is until the Grandchildren came along and then again, my mums house was a festive wonder filled with tacky decorations along side the more traditional. She might have complained about decorating, but once she made a start she wasn’t content until the Lounge, Dinning Room and Hall were all festive.
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.
I didn’t know whether or not to do The Gallery this week. It is something that I pop in and out of when it suits my blog and I have to admit the prompt of mother love had me all of a quiver this week, as I so miss my mum and the mothers love that she provided.
We may not have agreed on everything and over the years we certainly had our ups and down, but I did feel protected in her cape of mothers love. She was there for me when I had my operations and held my hand through countless miscarriages and nightmares about dead babies when the last thing I wanted to do was close my eyes. She was there for me when I spent most of Maxi’s pregnancy in hospital, traveling the 350 miles by bus to come and sit by my side in hospital for the week before he was born, even sleeping there.
She might not be here with me, but I know that her memories live on with me and my children. What I wouldn’t give for another day with my mum, one last good bye, one last hug. I would never let her go.
The Fab Coffee Lady sent me the adult version of the Lenten tasks. They came from the Live Life, Love Lent book published by the Church of England
Make someone laugh
Spend some time in silence
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.
One of the hardest things for me about clearing out mums house if that I have had the urge to keep everything. Even the things that I used to think were tat and rubbish. My heart associates all these things with my mum. Finally we are getting to the end of the long journey of clearing the house of over 35 years of detritus and my niece will be moving in to continue the tradition of the house being a family home. She will be keeping a lot of the furniture and other stuff, so we haven’t had to deal with clearing everything, but it has been an experience I am […]
If only we could be together, but we can’t, therefore, all I have are things and memories….. I am trying to hold it all together at the moment without you.
Home, the house I grew up in. The house that belonged to my paternal grandparents before it was my mum and dads. Home, still today it is home and it will long be in the future. No longer my home, but my brothers families home. There is something very comforting in knowing that our family will remain in the house that has brought us so much joy, but also so many tears these last months. Today I walked back in to our home, left as it was in January, when my sister in law and I took down the Christmas decorations. I walked past mums coat in the lobby and her […]
I miss my mum. The thing is over the last four years she has slowly become more than just my mother, she had become my friend and we spent a lot of our time together. One of the reasons we returned back to our native North East of England when I was pregnant with Mini was to be able to spend time with our families. When we lived in Berkshire my mum would visit for weeks on end and we really got on each others nerves. We were not supposed to live in each others pockets. So we reasoned that being closer would mean days out or afternoons shopping and we […]
Today is the day that we all say our final goodbyes to Mum. Her funeral is at 1pm and then she will be buried and we will be having a party to celebrate her life. I will be saying a eulogy in the church, I did for Dad too. I have decided to talk about mum as a Grandma. To our Grandma Whist talking to the boys and Tori about Grandma, I decided to write down the things that made mum such a special Grandma to three wonderful children. She lets us play what we want with her. We get to bake and make traffic light jellies. She is really […]
You carry on as though nothing is wrong in your world, you drop the children to school and you all chat banally about what presents you got for Christmas and what you bought in the January Sales, don’t you know I am dying inside. The children run around the playground delighted to see each other again after the Christmas break and I want to curl up and hide, don’t you know I am hurting inside. The cars jostle for parking spaces on the high street and the delivery lorries double park, more fodder for the consumers. Don’t they know the last thing I want is any more stuff, I am small […]
I would love to think that my mothers life was so precious that time stood still or even blurred in to the slow motion that you get in films, where every second lasted more than a minute. I would like to say that we are mourning her in the old fashioned way, but with two boys aged four and five and Christmas things have had to carry on with some semblance or normality. Not that I haven’t grieved, I have and still am and will be for a long time yet. I am sad in front of the boys and they both know it is OK to be sad too and […]
Mum with Maxi (16 March 2005) Margaret Elizabeth 26 September 1943 to 24/25 December 2010 Tragically my brother found my mum dead on Christmas morning. It appears she died not long after talking to me on Christmas Eve at 9.45pm. She was making a cup of tea in the kitchen to take to bed with her. Dearest Mum I wish I could gather my thoughts together enough to provide the words I need to say how much I am missing you already. My heart is breaking at the thought of never speaking to you again, but I am so glad our last words were I love you and our last conversation […]
