Please note: this piece contains descriptions some readers may find upsetting.
My dear Mum, I’m here to make my peace with cap in hand. It has taken a lot of courage to admit how wrong I’ve been over the years. You made many bad mistakes but I can now understand the reasons why. You are now at rest in this beautiful place. I wish I could have celebrated your life when you were alive but you let me down so many times.
From a small child you nurtured me towards a life that enabled me to take on anything I wished to do. Like you I’m a Jack of all trades but a master of none. At least I’ll have a go. I remember you decorating our home on your own. Dad never seemed supportive and turned a blind eye to whatever you were doing.
How did you feel when you found out that he had a son? It must have been a very traumatic time for you. Did you ever wonder where and how it had happened? I understand that you wanted to adopt the baby, but the woman’s mother didn’t want you to have the child. Could you ever trust Dad again? It upset me when you told me about it. I loved Dad very much and couldn’t believe that he would have let you down so.
At that time, you were expecting your own first child who died suddenly in her cot. You were on your own, Dad was away at war. How did you cope? You then went on to have me a few years later. You must have been very frightened that it would happen again, but you survived and brought up a family of three children. I remember you had several miscarriages in between. Life went on and we were a very happy family in those days.
Do you remember our Christmases making paper chains and pleating crepe paper? I’ve such happy memories. Our house would always look very festive with a real tree standing proud in front of the window covered in homemade decorations and tinsel. You taught me how to dress the fairy and make sparkly wings and a wand. I remember she came out every year after that. Dad would go to the local market on Christmas eve and get a large chicken and grandma and auntie would arrive on Christmas day and have dinner and tea with us. You made me eat bread and butter with my jelly. I hated it. We would all sit around the table playing games and pulling crackers. Such happy times.
Summers were long and hot. We didn’t see too much of you as you had to work full time. Us kids were left to fend for ourselves, but that was what happened in those days. We always managed a day out at the seaside, wearing new clothes that you had made for us. Do you remember me falling into the pond at Littlehampton and coming up covered in green weed? Your face said it all.
At weekends we would visit the local park and take some sandwiches and dandelion and burdock. Yuk! I couldn’t drink that now. We would play ball and fish in the pond for tiddlers. I can remember an occasion when you showed us how to do handstands against the wall. I could never do that but never forgot you with your dress tucked in your knickers. You were such a sport.
But where did it all go wrong?
You and Dad sold up our home and we were all farmed out to relatives who were willing to take charge of us for an unspecified period. You trained as licensees and moved around London on holiday relief to begin with, and then took over your own pub. Yes, that is where it all began. Alcohol!
The following years were hell. Trying to end your life as everything was becoming too much. You couldn’t take the stress of running a public house. And after a few years you did give it up, but where did you go? As a cook housekeeper to a Lord in Scotland where alcohol was freely available. This sent your further into the life of an alcoholic. You lost your self-respect and lived for your bottle every day.
I hated visiting you in those days, but my husband told me that you were our children’s grandmother and I shouldn’t keep them from you. Luckily, they never knew as you nearly always appeared to them as the doting granny. I often left you and drove home in tears.
One day I was called by the police; they had found you only just alive under a hedge in a nearby field. When I saw you in hospital, I suddenly realised that you were extremely ill and that your alcoholism was debilitating, and you could not help yourself. Time in hospital did not relieve you of your addiction and you returned home to continue drinking.
When Dad was taken from you in the car accident it was the saddest time for us. You never returned home but was placed in a care home. A stroke reduced your mobility and you never went out again. I’m sorry that I didn’t visit but you were always in my thoughts. The morning I had the call to say that you had passed away I was sad but relieved that you would now be at peace.
I never had the opportunity to talk to you frankly. I always loved you and was thankful for teaching me how to cook, knit, sew and to try everything in my life’s path even if I didn’t want to. I now understand what a hard life you led. Looking after three children, working full time all your life, supporting Dad who continued to pay maintenance for his son for many years, and much more. I love you, Mum, and I celebrate your life and wish that I had told you that many years ago.
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