My Mother and truest Friend

On Thursday October 11th, 2001, our world was shattered when we lost Mummy. Though we knew the prognosis and that she’d grown tired, it was so difficult to accept that she was gone. It was the greatest pain I’d ever experienced and her loss was unbearable. It was the love and comfort I received from relatives and friends that helped me cope.

Mummy had prepared Kevin and me for that day when she would leave and all she asked is that we take care of each other. We have done so.

Death of a loved one is never easy, but the death of my mother was the most devastating event in my life. No one knows the pain I’ve felt and the tears I’ve cried. No one knows how great a loss this has been.

I can qualify it more: I am the only person to lose this mother. My relationship with Mummy was unique and had nuances that were extremely personal and, in many ways intensely private. There are those moments shared between a mother and daughter, when no one else is a witness, and those become a slide show of memories that are precious yet heartbreaking.

There were so many times spent with her that made me realize not only how much she loved me, but how that love was magnified by things I said and did. When Kevin was born, I saw something in the sparkle of Mummy’s eyes that was both familiar and different, a sort of maternal pride that coalesced as she held him in her arms, reminiscent of her own motherhood and yet celebrating my new motherhood.

The affirmation of our mother-daughter bond was multiplied infinitesimally by this new dynamic. Just when I thought Mummy could not love me any more, I found that she could through my son, her grandson Kevin.

How does someone assess a lifetime of a loved one after that person is gone? I don’t know how to do it justice, but even seven years after losing her, looking at her photograph, emotions pour forth that cause me to lose myself. Composure seems to be such a valued thing in our society, and yet when I analyse it, I know that the breaking down of what was my laissez-faire nature has caused me to change considerably. The “new” me is not just more emotional, but more vulnerable, sullen, at times morose, and infinitely more quiet.

I have prayed and prayed and my return to God has been in part because of the loss but also in finding something in myself that needed spirituality. For a while, I believed God had abandoned me, but I don’t feel that this is blasphemous, for Jesus himself screamed as he was nailed to the cross, “Father, why have you abandoned me?” It is in the darkest times, as Theodore Roethke wrote, that one begins to see.

Writing this has not been easy. I wrote a few lines and stopped; I wrote a paragraph and stopped again. It hasn’t been a fluid process at all but more one of uneasy reclamation; the capturing of my own spirit and its fledgling hope for a better tomorrow.

Still, there is no choice but to look back. I have memories and memorabilia that link Mummy to me and Kevin. Mummy is with me, a real presence in my heart and mind, as well as in Kevin and all those whom she loved.

Mummy, may you continue to rest eternally in peace.

ONE SWEET DAY

I gaze up to the heavens
Wondering if you see
Those of us you left behind
Your beloved family

I close my eyes, I see your face
I see your beautiful smile
Oh mum I would give anything
To talk to you a while

I'd tell how much I miss you
How each day you come to mind
and of your faith and hope and love
You knew one day I'd find

I'd tell how when you left me
My world was torn apart
Until one day when peace and love
Enveloped my heart

It was your Saviour Jesus
He knew how great my loss
He tenderly wiped away my tears
And led me to His cross

All my hurts and anger
Had built up over time
He showed me how to let it go
For His forgiveness to be mine

He showed me how through all the years
Your love - unconditional and strong
Had paved the way for me to find
To Him, I too belong


I know now where I'm heading
And that Jesus is The Way
For you, my dearest mum and I
To meet again - One Sweet Day