It was my mother’s 69th birthday yesterday – which unfortunately my children find hilarious. When I get to 69 – if that number still causes howls of laughter owing to it’s sexual nature from my children (who thankfully might have grown up by then) and, more importantly if I actually still care or even remember what it was referring to – then I am going to lie about my age. Skip straight to the big 70 and have a party two years running. I can’t cope with a whole year of snorts every time I have to fill in a form or announce how old I am.
Although it’s not really very old is it, but she’s feeling very small and old I think and looking smaller by the minute. She’s been staying with me since Monday – pottering about not doing very much and it’s all a little bit sad really. She misses my father dreadfully. Everything still seems so scary for her. Yesterday she topped up her mobile phone pay as you go under the watchful eye of my 11 year old at our local corner store for the first time since my father died – because she’d never done it before and didn’t have a clue.
I sort of don’t want to be like that. I am hugely envious obviously of the wonderful years she spent with my father – her soulmate – the years they laughed and travelled and played together. They had a lot of fun. She doesn’t function nearly so well without him. That perhaps is the price you pay. Perhaps it’s all or nothing. She invested her whole life in him and now he has gone she has found she doesn’t have the network of friends she could or should have had. Nor the ability or inclination to do things on her own.
I can see where this is all going – given my increasingly fiercely independent streak – she and I will end up going on holiday together every year and I will be the bossy one with the passports and the tickets.
Oh dear. I have visions – and they are not good.
But still, I want her to be enjoying herself on her own at some point in the future when she has found a way not to miss him so much – if indeed that is at all possible. I’m not sure how you do that. We put on a good party for her yesterday. The gorgeous cake was baked by my lovely sister in law and she decorated the table and put up bunting and candles and we toasted her and had a lovely meal and my other brother managed to get away from work for the evening and my children were there and I hope she enjoyed herself…….
It’s all we can do really – keep surrounding her with family and hoping for the best.
We bought her a Tom Tom for her birthday which was super risky because she can’t bear anything electronic – it’s just that we thought maybe it would encourage her to get out and about more but she opened it and you could see her shoulders droop and she actually said “but I love MAPS” in that way that means we will be traipsing back to the shop today – with the receipt. Oh. Well.
