Remember when Mum gave all the cows names?
Earlier, Bert and I wandered up to the churchyard to spend a while at C’s grave. I noticed that the flowers I took up there had been cleared away by someone thoughtful (Mrs Lovely, probably) – there’s nothing worse than dead flowers by a grave – and felt guilty that I hadn’t brought fresh ones. There’s no headstone yet, D says it’s too early, but various people have left terracotta pots full of flowers and it looks very pretty.
Every time I go, I remember snatches of conversations; brief moments in time that now seem so long ago: snorty belly laughs as well as tears and frustrations. Was it really last October when we went to the pumpkin festival together? Last November when we did trick or treating, jamming our overdressed and overexcited children into the back of the jeep so we could visit the neighbours?
Time flies. We’re already making plans for Christmas – my family are all flying over and we’re tremendously excited, but it’ll be bittersweet. Last year, we spent both Christmas and New Year’s Eve with C, D and the kids. D does a good job, and I have to stop myself from flapping over the children: do they have the right stuff for school? Do they need new swimmers for their imminent holiday? He’s very patient and I think (hope) realises that I’m only trying to help – he has The Lovelies, who help in so many ways, and his parents. The children have lots of support, but every so often it will hit me that things will never be the same: like a well-intentioned note on Lou’s hospital appointment that said ‘remember your Mammy can stay overnight with you’.
Her number’s still in my phone. I kept her texts: frustrated ones from hospital: ‘goin stir crazy in here’, supportive ones: ‘yr the next Delia Smith!’, and downright silly ones too. Life goes on. We all carry on, but she’s not forgotten. ’Remember when Mum gave all the cows names?’ Little C said last week. Yes, I do. Like it was yesterday.
19 Responses to “Remember when Mum gave all the cows names?”
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Dreading the coming year but have received some comfort from your words.
x
I’ll bet she smiled extra wide watching your impression of a Jack in the Box at her Mass, though!
(hugs missus)
She took the mother into her arms and told her that this day would pass, as would tomorrow. I had no idea what that meant until years later, at her funeral, when I longed for that distant tomorrow when the pain in my soul might be gone.
It never did go, but then neither did she. Her wisdom will follow me all of my life.
(hugs to you too isit)
Jen: Talking of friends people are proud of, and there you are! Ah, the Easter Egg hunt – happy days indeed. She snaffled all the Rolos as I recall
My father in law is getting ready to leave us. He’s a character and is going to leave a huge gap in my life when he’s gone.
Thrifty: How nicely put. You know how sometimes you forget and think: ‘oh, she’d like that’ or ‘oh I must tell him this’… memories play the strangest tricks x
K8: Thank you. You’re so right, and I think somehow when the initial ‘ouch’ has passed, your memories of that person seem to come easier somehow too.
Jenn: I’m so sorry to hear that. He sounds lovely – you must all be devastated x
A:Just cut off her head and wipe her arse
big hugs sis
x
Alg: Oh har de har. Thanks darlin’ xxx
[...] C would be proud. [...]