30. A poignant but (almost) perfect Mother’s Day

The way they were: Dad and Mum on their wedding day

Love never dies. Dad with Mum. She passed away the next day.

Mother’s Day was especially poignant yesterday. It was the first time my three brothers and I didn’t have a Mum. No cards to send, no flowers. No visit. That was the hardest part. We had no-one to visit. She died on December 21st last year after her struggle with Alzheimer’s finally ended. I wrote about it in earlier posts.

Betty – our mother – will never be forgotten, of course. She was loved by far more people than her sons. But her absence hit home especially hard yesterday. It was (or would have been) her birthday in mid-March and we still sent cards – to my dad – so he knew that we were thinking about him as much as her.

But sending a Mother’s Day card to Dad didn’t feel appropriate, so we let the event pass. I know my brothers went to visit the plaque bearing her name in the church memorial garden which is her final resting place, but I didn’t go. She wouldn’t have wanted me to make the trip from London to Manchester to stare at an inscription. She would have wanted me to spend the time making Mother’s Day special for the other mother in our family – my wife – so that’s what I did.

The logistics of this are not to be sniffed at because ours is a complicated family. My stepdaughter spends every weekend with her real dad and so it was this weekend. But I wanted Child 1 to be with her Mum on Sunday, and so did her dad, and so I got up early, marinated a chicken in lemon, garlic and rosemary, filled the car with petrol, then set off for the three-hour round-trip to collect her.

We rarely have a sit-down lunch together. The flat’s too small, for one thing, but because Child 2 is more often than not with Her Other Family, it feels like someone is missing from the table.

Not yesterday. I returned home with C1’s overnight bag on my shoulder and a purpose in mind. This was going to be a Double Mother’s Day Celebration. I par-boiled potatoes, peeled carrots and parsnips, washed and sliced some leeks and retrieved a jar of homemade stock from the freezer. Then as the Mother Of Our Children opened their gifts, I cooked.

We sat down for the loveliest Mother’s Day meal ever. Unlike previous years, where I was with my mum and my wife was with hers, we spent this one together. A passing of the generational baton.

My sons – because of their age, and because I never wanted to see my Mum ravaged by Dementia the way she was – never got to know their Gran. But I will make sure I give them what she gave me: love, respect, manners. Family.

I miss my Mum massively, but she’s in a better place than the Hell that had become the last years of her  life because of the disease that took her. All she ever wanted was the best for Her Lads. And yesterday – amongst the many other days – I fulfilled that wish.

Cheers, Mum. If you could see my gorgeous family,  you’d be proud.

The Successful Other Half and our 'achievements!'

Footnote: The day didn’t quite start as perfectly as I’d planned. I got up at 10.50am, two hours after the Mother Of Our Children, who had breakfasted and dressed the boys. She forgive me later. I think!