Owed to Mum

This is the weekend between the first anniversary of Mum's death on 30th August and her birthday on 2nd September.

I have a friend who believes that I am still grieving.  I don't think that is so.  I have grieved that Mum did not use her full potential, content to be a wife and mother, and I am sad that she did not make better use of her time in the nursing home.  These were her choices and I respect them.

Mum was a very good wife and mother.  I left home at about 18 to live in a uni college and then left in 1974 to live in Tasmania.  I spent little time with her from then on.  This is demonstrated by the few photos that I have of her.  I have never missed my Mum. It is as if she is always with me - especially when I look in the mirror...  She and Dad did a good  job and raised me to be capable and independent.  I love her, and am very grateful.

Favourite photos:

Mum with her Mum and Dad, Weymouth, around 1930

Mum, Helen and I circa 1957

Mum, Helen and I on the verandah of the nursing home during covid

Last weekend a couple with a young daughter camped next door at the caravan park.  It mostly rained and I watched them struggle to put up their tent and, a couple of days later, pack it all away.  It occurred to me that Mum and Dad had done this many times and, as a child, I had taken it for granted.

They had their naughty eagle boy with them.  Another reminder.

Horsham, on the way to Tasmanian holiday 1970

Mum was no shirker:

concreting the driveway at 16 Ramsey

(photo courtesy of Helly)

slaving away at my place 1981

nearing the end of a big day of trains and walks in Barcelona 2014

and a big day walking the clifftops from Pwyllgwaelod to Cym yr Eglys 2014

We shared a passion for eating:

we love a good picnic, River Derwent around 1981

Mum's first paella 2014

and we both so love seafood

that Mum gave me money for The Easterers to have a fish frenzy on the Eyre Peninsula in 2013, wishing she could be there.  She loved us all.

 

I love blackbirds and consider them to be a sign of home.  We have always had them in our garden but this week they have taken to hanging around the house.  It feels like a blessing.