Mother's Day

A day many of us get breakfast in bed and an excuse for gifts that let us know the stuff we do as a mother doesn't go unnoticed, even if it feels it does most of the time, or our kids tell us they hate us.
Mother's Day for me though brings mixed feelings and I'm pretty certain I'm not the only one. My mum is no longer here.

My mother died when my eldest was 3 months old. That was more than 10 years ago now and I still miss her terribly. Often it's not something that enters my head, it isn't a constant aching loss, but that makes it hurt no less. Days like today I am profoundly aware of just what she, I and my children have missed out on. They never knew her. I wish so much that that was different. She was such a wonderful mother to me. She was a quiet, peaceful and fun influence on my life.

We didn't have much but it didn't matter because we had her and she gave us everything she could; which included a solid work ethic, good grounding in life skills like cooking and using what you have to get by. She taught me to sew, encouraged me to be crafty and make things for others, and accepted what were probably very dodgy efforts on my behalf as valued gifts.

My mother also wasn't afraid to have fun and laugh at herself. She was the one who taught me the value of a good practical joke. There were stories of going to camps and hanging all the boys clothes down at a nearby bus shelter. Being fined at the start of the same camps simply because of who her sisters were and deciding if that was the way it was she may as well make the most of it.

There were cousins who made the mistake of trusting my mother and her sisters and their mother (Oma) with things like wedding luggage - oops, a mistake I knew not to repeat. I didn't pack a honeymoon bag, so my mother put rice through all my luggage. More fool her though she taught me well. When I dropped in to grab my stuff before the reception I emptied my whole bag in my parents bed, picked my clothes out and remade their bed. They were picking rice out of the carpets for months. She also taught me how to short sheet a bed.
She may not have understood the creative force that drives me but she supported it. She was the calm in our, at times, chaotic storm. She stood strong in the face of adversity, even the cancer that eventually took her life. She was warm and generous of spirit. The thought of disappointing her was a more powerful motivator than her anger.
Faith for her was rich, deep and real. She hurt at the end when well meaning people of faith insisted she wasn't getting healed because she must have had some unacknowledged sin in her life or some other crap. I was so angry with them. But she'd call me up when she was down and I knew it was my job to make her laugh. So we'd come up with silly things like hanging up a huge pink parachute from the roof at her wake and having white liquid spurt all over people like a boobie leaking milk.
I remember this one time at the airport when she'd just gotten her fake boobs (she never had reconstructive surgery these were just like prosthetic ones that filled out a bra for the times she wanted that). She took it out of its box and was passing it around so we could feel it. The poor guy sitting near us had no idea what to say or really where to look. Even when she was sick she kept her sense of humour.

There are times even now I wish I could just ring her up and ask her questions, or share things with her. I have no idea what she would think about what I do now, or how I am as a mother, I only hope I can be half as good at it as she was, if I can do that then maybe my girls will have a good grounding for their lives.