It’s Easter Monday and also the first anniversary of my mother’s death, but it’s pretty unlikely that she’s going to be rising from the dead any time soon. We like to think of her reunited with our father – her beloved husband, who she never managed to truly live without, she will be much happier now she’s back with him. Is there another word than “anniversary” I should be using? I always think of anniversaries as celebrations….although maybe that’s what we will continue to do.
We had our usual family get together to celebrate and commiserate on Sunday evening and reminisced about her, with my brothers and my children. Mainly it was her joy of family that cropped up endlessly – which we are definitely managing to continue with. The bursts of laughter that enveloped our evening always remind me of her – that was her major currency – always laughing and able to to see the funny side of life. It is a wonderful skill to have and not one that I probably thanked her for enough.
I can’t believe it’s been a year. It feels like I’ve been in some kind of holding pen as I learn to navigate the world in a whole new way – as an orphan! We’re all still learning how to fill the massive void (despite her tiny frame) that she’s left behind, but with the help of friends and family (and alcohol!) it’s made it a lot easier. I’ve stopped picking up the phone to call her regularly at least, so whilst I don’t miss her every day, an unexpected pang of loss can still appear out of nowhere and stop me in my tracks.
We’re still sorting through the contents of her house and it’s taking time for a reason. It’s emotionally exhausting to unpick a whole life (and that of my father’s too) and it doesn’t take long before going through all that sentimental stuff feels so physically tiring that you have to stop after just a couple of hours. Also, it’s incredibly daunting to think that when we finally do finish clearing her house, we will no longer have a space that we can sit in and remember her by. The tangible memories will disappear because we won’t be able to sit on her sofa in the little indentation she had made hers. There will be no sofa. Worse than that, we have to pay £55.00 to have it dumped. The precious sofa my mother sat on for years and years. It doesn’t seem right.
It’s been a tumultuous year since she’s been gone and there’s been a lot of change in all our lives. I’ve split up from my partner and my two brothers have also been dealing with deeply emotional issues – ones that my mother had plenty of time to help them with. One of her grandchildren (my youngest) is currently in Australia (I’m hoping not for too much longer!) and another (my daughter) has had a tumultuous time with her career, but hopefully things are settling down now.
As we move forward though, it’s a relief to know that time is helping us move on from real sadness and nostalgia to the love and joy of reminiscence, for the woman that made the three of us us. She was the knot that stopped us fraying too much around the edges. She always managed to turn the tide and find a way to point out that our specific situation was not the absolute trauma that we initially thought it was. Now we have to work it out for ourselves – which we can still do thanks to pretty much knowing what she probably would have said and we can then make our decisions accordingly.
Here she is on the last night we were all together, with my son, still laughing, despite her horrendous back pain:-
And with the wider team:-
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