Hey Up Mum …
How is life up there on your cloud?
Can you remember Monkey Magic [ how could you forget it was Mark & I favourite programme! ] Well that’s how I like to envisage you … zapping around on your super-powered – all singing -all dancing cloud
It’s been a funny old year. My 50th and your 75th year – the BIG one’s that we had discussed and made plans for on numerous occasions has turned into a bit of a ‘shit show’ Continue reading
I have a yearning to travel again; explore new places. To sit in hidden coffee bars that smell of tobacco, sun oil and ‘Brut’ . Places where nobody speaks English . Sipping coffee, watching the world go by.
To lie on sandy beaches where the only thing I have to worry about is whether I’ve shaved my legs, reapplying my sun lotion and what to eat next.
To drink over-priced cheap alcohol and dance to Euro ‘clappy clappy’ songs well into the early hours.
Make and collect new memories
When mum died I felt like a huge part of me died too . Travel … life in general lost its flavour. I was vanilla in a pistachio world. I just wanted my mum and hated the world for taking her from me.
I still think about my mum every single day. Some days it’s just a fleeting memory. Some days it feels as though I’m punishing myself and everything resonates back to her
It will be 3 years in July since she died, the fact that I’ve not spoken to or held her for that long is unfathomable. So much has happened over those 3 years. Stuff that she has not been a part of. Yet weirdly I like to believe that she hasn’t missed out on anything because I carry her everywhere with me
She is my smile and dark sense of humour. I can hear her in my mucky laugh and see glimpses of her in my reflection . She is my mischievous side. The way my bum looks flat and square in my work trousers and my overly wrinkly hands. She is the way I curse at everyone and everybody in the car . She is coffee and a slice of carrot cake …my love of fun … Kitchen discos and party games
She is very much alive; she is part of me and she’s telling me it’s time for some pistachio 💕
Sometimes I feel so ‘full’ that I could burst. I’ll look around & see people enjoying themselves; shiny happy people as ‘REM’ coined them.
I feel overcome with a sense of enormous emotion , you know the kind? Warm ,fuzzy and all consuming. You are so glad to be alive, surrounded by the most amazing friends and family . You feel like you could combust with happiness . You want to group hug everybody.
July … what does it mean to you ?
For me it’s the start of a long hot summer [hopefully] alfresco ‘everything’ in the garden , weekends away, my best friends birthday.
It is also a painful reminder that in just a few days time, 2 years ago , my mum and best friend died.
July 10th at 3.40pm in palliative care with Dad & I sat by her bedside.
I’ll not lie I’m in a weird-ass mood
Before mum died … seems like a life-time away, it also feels like yesterday.
Before mum died … I seemingly didn’t have a care in the world. I probably did but It just felt like I laughed constantly [especially with my mum] my world was good.
I was the girl up for anything. If you told me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do it then you can guarantee I would probably try . I’d then run back to my mum and tell her all-about it. She’d shake her head while we sat laughing uncontrollably. I loved that. I loved sharing stuff with her. She would pretend to be shocked [at some things ] but believe me my mum was a little minx, an instigator and terribly encouragable.
For example my mum found this story particularly funny … [and ‘Tracey does Kavos‘ which despite being hilarious & very, very innocent I promised I’d never talk about .My mum was worried people would get the wrong impression . If I ever write my memoirs it’ll be in there for sure…] Continue reading
AD | gift only
LETTERS FROM MUM
“I trace the line of each letter with my finger…
Absorbing every single word
I Imagine your face as you wrote each one; no doubt giggling at your own jokes
I smile … but at the same time a wave of heavy, sadness engulfs me and I can’t stop the tears.
Happy tears, sad tears , innocent tears for a time when I naively thought you’d be around forever .
I smell the paper; I’m disappointed that it doesn’t smell of you … year’s stored safely away in a Cigarette box has put pay to that.
I hold the letters against my heart and imagine that you are holding me
A part of you is etched on those precious pieces of paper. Conversations that can’t be erased . Words forever embedded in my heart “
I wrote this poem after I was approached by the lovely Emma from Inscripture to see whether I would like to collaborate with them and choose a piece of their beautiful jewellery.
After looking into the company I couldn’t say no.
It’s no ordinary jewellery … they take special words from letters, cards etc and engrave them onto jewellery – ‘You live the moments, we create the memories’
It is a beautiful concept and something that would make a special keepsake / gift.