Three years on: Remembering Mum

This is a blog all about my wonderful Mum. I worry that in writing about grief she becomes a ‘third person’ and quite abstract, so I want to humanise her. As well as being a hugely passionate and articulate maternal healthcare campaigner (see the Guardian obituary below), she was also a bit forgetful and sometimes clumsy. She loved seafood and lattes and Scandinavian crime dramas and hated scary movies and getting her headphones in a tangle. I want to tell you about these things that made up the littler parts of her. I want to give you an impression of my hugely fierce and energetic mother who I have missed more and more for now a nauseating 1,095 days (3 years).

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Mum was beautiful, but particularly so when she smiled.

She didn’t have a very intensive morning routine. She would wake up, tune in to Radio 4 from her phone, and then apply this deliciously thick Dr Hauskha rose face cream over her face, being sure to remember her neck. Then she would hastily apply some black eyeliner, a bit of mascara and she was done. It took about 5 minutes.

At the weekend, Mum would appear in the kitchen with her bath-wet hair (she rarely used a hairdryer and didn’t own a hairbrush), a handful of washing under one arm and papers in the other with her laptop balanced precariously in there as well. Her hands would be carrying as many mugs and glasses as she could, after a steady collection from her room to the kitchen. Behind her would be a trail of socks.  I would know Mum was coming down the stairs if I could hear the clinking of glasses against the mugs and the slow shuffle as she attempted to balance everything carefully in her hands. The smell that would follow would be a mixture of the shea frizz control hair cream she used, her perfume (Issy Miyake for most of my childhood) together with the faint rose scent from her face cream.

Mum on her wedding day, aged 24

Often, when Mum entered the kitchen, she would have an earphone in her ear from the audiobooks she enjoyed listening to, or from being on the phone. She would forget they were in there and sometimes it looked like she was listening to something when actually nothing was playing. I had to remind her on many occasions to take them out because otherwise it looked rude. I think this was probably also Mum’s attempt make sure she didn’t lose them or get them tangled up. Getting her headphones in a tangle was one of her biggest pet peeves. if someone was calling and she hadn’t had the chance to untangle them, you would see Mum with her head in an awkward position, trying to speak into the headphone microphone while her phone had to be held close to her face so the headphones weren’t pulled out.  

Mum lost things frequently. I have many memories of her exclaiming ‘my phone!?” and then rummaging about through her bag, with a strained look on her face as she tried to find it. It was immediate panic, probably because Mum was so used to losing things and always assumed she had left it somewhere (she once left an expensive ring Dad had bought her after I was born in a public loo on the motorway after taking it off to wash her hands). This propensity to misplace things was one of her reasons for having a bright red phone case, so she could more easily spot her phone in her bag. I didn’t really think it made a difference. It probably would have been easier to have less clutter to sort through (although I know Mum would vehemently argue that it’s not fair to call it clutter when most of the times, she was carrying things around all of us might need…)

Mum was also a bit clumsy. I used to get frustrated when she was carrying out a task really deliberately and slowly, but now I understand she had to overcompensate for her clumsiness and be extra careful. I do exactly the same now. I remember when I was 12 and on my first trip to town alone with friends, I used my pocket money to buy a really nice pair of silver dangly earrings from Claire’s Accessories. When I went to try them on to show Mum, in my excitement I dropped one and it fell through the floorboards in our kitchen. I was mortified. I remember Mum saying that that used to happen to her all the time, and she had to learn not to get attached to material things because she would always end up spoiling them. This was one of the reasons Mum didn’t buy expensive things. Cashmere jumpers would end up with splashes of oils on them, woollen jumpers occasionally left half the size they started out as and white tops speckled with faint red stains from Dad’s puttanesca sauce.  

In France the summer before mum was diagnosed again

Mum could be a bit forgetful of the smaller things, which is something I have inherited (I like to attribute it to my genes). On a holiday to France, the first summer I had started the contraceptive pill, I realised I had forgotten to bring enough for the whole 4 weeks we were away. Mum got really angry at me in the vegetable section of the supermarket, and said I needed to be more responsible about things like this and take it seriously by planning ahead properly. It turned out she had also forgotten to bring enough of the pills she was taking (Tamoxifen, an oestrogen blocker she took after the first time she had cancer) so we had to ask my boyfriend at the time to go to our house and send both mine and Mum’s pills to France. I remember feeling secretly triumphant it hadn’t just been me forgetting. 

I think this openness with Mum about my life and relationships began when I realised she was very good at soothing worries, and making me feel better about even the most ridiculous things. The first time I actively opened up to Mum was when I was about 6 years old. We had spent some of the afternoon in a bank while Mum sorted out a problem with her card. While waiting, I had slowly filled my flowery bag with about ten of the mini pens they left around for people to fill in forms (one in each pocket and a few to fill the main compartment). When we got home, and I saw how many I had taken, I realised this might count as stealing.  Mum could tell something was up as I sat mute on the stairs, looking pale and forlorn at the thought that I could go to prison and that the police were probably already on their way. Mum gently said something like ‘Ella, you know you can talk to me about anything that is on your mind and we can make it better’ and after a bit more coaxing, I sat on her lap while she patiently listened to me confess my crime. After I had said my piece, Mum told me I didn’t have to worry because those pens were free, and it wasn’t stealing at all. In just a few words, my knotted stomach unwound itself and all of a sudden life felt better again. The relief was immense, and I vividly remember that feeling of worry dissolving to nothing, all as a result of a conversation with mum. 

Mum said she had been a big worrier when she was younger, and I think this made her extra sympathetic when I came to her with my worries. There were multiple occasions when I would pad down the stairs in the middle of the night to her side of the bed and tell her about my fears of being evacuated to the countryside (this happened when learning about World War One) or of super volcanoes (when I learnt about them in geography) or even worries about  terrorist attacks on our house. She would tell me worrying wasn’t going to change anything, and that if anything happened, she would be there with me. Every worry felt justified and important in Mum’s eyes. She never once remarked ‘don’t be silly’ and I think this paved the way for open and honest communication into my teens.

beautiful mum

Before bed, and these moments of tossing and turning in worry, Mum would read to us. We moved from Horrid Henry, to Roald Dahl to Harry Potter. When Mum wasn’t reading to us all and found a moment for herself, she would often read historical fiction. She enjoyed stories about the Queens of England and my favourite thing would be when she would re-tell these stories to us on walks or in the car on long journeys to Wales. Whenever we visited castle ruins, she would get us to imagine what each of the different rooms were for, painting a picture of what life could have been like then. If ever we listened to classical music in the car, to our loud protests of ‘noooooo this is so boring’ she would ask us to imagine what scene was being depicted…was it a King and a lady in waiting falling in love, or a fight on the battlefield. She’d tell us to close our eyes and really listen.

Mum told us only boring people got bored, which was enough incentive to always try and find something to do. On walks when I was really young, she would tell me stories about fairies and how they might use parts of a forest for their homes. We would seek out big green leaves and ponder over what a fairy might use them for. Perhaps it would be a skirt or a dress, or if the leaf had a particularly deep indent it could be used for bathing. Daffodils always presented themselves as the most multi-functional fairy piece, with their delicious floral scent, deep cylindrical tube in the middle (perfect for a skirt) and the six identical petals surrounding it (potential seats for a table).

While Mum had a brilliant imagination, it didn’t extend to her cooking. Her three signature dishes were: big roasted portobello mushrooms with pesto and parmesan, pastry parcels filled with goats’ cheese and pesto, and a mackerel and rice mix with spring onion and olives cut in (but if you dare suggested to Mum that she couldn’t cook, she would angrily reply that it wasn’t a case of inability, just of choosing not to invest time in it).

Most of the time, when Mum and Dad found an evening for each other, Dad would cook for them both. Past 9 o’clock was their time. At the weekend, while Mum read to the boys upstairs, Dad would lay out treats for her while he cooked. I remember the indignation of being told it was past nine and ‘Mum and Dad time’, particularly when I saw the delicious treats laid out so lovingly for Mum.  It was the only time I ever wrote notes to my parents in capital letters, telling them it was so MEAN and RUDE to not be allowed downstairs with them when my friend Molly ALWAYS had dinner with her parents. I would stick this to their bedroom door or slide it into the kitchen, making sure to do so with great stomping and show. Mum was always less sympathetic to my cries of mistreatment than Dad. Sometimes, while sulking in my room, I would hear a knock at my door, and when I opened it there would be a tray prepared by Dad on the floor, of fizzy water in a wine glass, Jamón prepared just how Dad made it for Mum (with a drizzle of oil and sprinkle of black pepper– it looked very adult), a bowl of black olives and a handful of kettle crisps. Dad does this for me now sometimes, bringing up olives and crisps (with a glass of wine this time) when I am working in my room. It’s my favourite treat.

I could go on and on…

Mum on her honeymoon in italy

Sometimes I look in the mirror and try and spot the parts of Mum in me… but I feel like a lot of our similarities are more evident in our expressions. I use my hands a lot when I talk, which Mum did too, and it’s comforting when I sometimes catch myself in the mirror while talking, sporting a similar expression to Mum. I can’t quite capture the meaning of these moments, but it’s a reminder that part of Mum lives on in me and I feel this strange power that I can remind myself of her. This makes me feel a bit more comforted that when the time comes for me to have children without Mum there (the most heartbreaking, heart aching thought), I can give them an essence of the grandma they will never meet through my actions and my words.  I can tell them stories of Kings and Queens of England, walk through forests and look out for Daffodils, and every time they are clumsy tell them about all the times Mum was a bit clumsy and forgetful. I want a bank of anecdotes to pull out at every moment so she can become part of their everyday. Having kids is of course a long way off, but milestones like today, remind me of these potential future milestones. When I think ahead to a future without Mum and how grief will manifest itself, having kids seems like it will be the most visceral and true reminder of her absence because suddenly she will become an absence to someone (these fictional children) by default.  Day to day, I create a new reality without Mum physically being here and I can try and shade in the parts of my day where I would need her with other moments and distractions. But in my imagined future, having children seems like an unavoidable full-frontal collision with grief.

I want to keep Mum alive as much as possible. I want my Mum to be known and talked about and remembered. Writing is one of the ways I can do this (along with showing off about her many achievements and abilities in the same way you might name drop a celebrity). Three years have passed, and not a day has gone by where she hasn’t been a part of my every day in one way or another. Missing her is a daily practice. Sometimes it is more pronounced and other times just a soft ache, but it is always, always there.

Mum’s obituary in the Guardian:

The Guardian