Anniversary list

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother’s death and I was all set to write a list of everything I liked about her.

    Frog and I had been spending all our spare time over the last two or three weeks pruning, hedging and clearing brambles in an effort to retrieve our views. Being outside so much had helped my mood and I decided that the time had come to be positive about my parents.

A trimmed (wild) hedge and the return of our westerly view

Pruned shrubs, cleared brambles and the return of our southerly view

Then at 3am I woke with a migraine. I dragged myself through the day, beating myself up for my backsliding, and the list didn’t get written.

Today, feeling a bit better, I went into Exeter to do some errands and got talking to my favourite Big Issue seller. His gorgeous greyhound George wasn’t there and, knowing how poorly George had been, I feared the worst. As he told me about George’s last days and how he’d buried him and how his mother had put a twig on the grave, and I talked about the death of our previous dog Penny, we both started crying.

    ‘I didn’t mean to cry,’ he said, ‘but you can always tell a dog-owner. They have an extra spark of humanity.’

    I bought him a coffee and walked away, somehow connecting what he’d said with my migraines. I'd always thought they were a sign of my lack of humanity, of being emotionally stunted, but maybe they were the opposite. Confused and angry I might be at the moment and often unable to see the way forward, but at least I am reacting to life.

So, thank you George, and thank you Big Issue seller, whose name I don’t know, and here is the list.

Things I liked about my mother

• She let me watch and help her cook.
• She taught me to sew.
• She instilled in me a love of reading, by reading out loud to me and my brother when we were young and then going backwards and forwards to the library fetching us books.
• She showed me by example and encouragement the importance of good food, fresh air and exercise.
• She and I used to giggle helplessly together at the same inappropriate moments (eg in church or when eccentric relatives visited).
• She was glamorous.
• She had a tendency to dissolve into tears.
• She was open about parts of the body and bodily functions.
• Whenever she used a rude word (‘Hell’s bells’, ‘Like shit out of a goose’) she blamed her brothers.
• She loved giving presents.(And here are two of them, which I'm using every day in the cold weather at the moment.)

Two soft warm scarves given to me by my mother - a pinky-red pashmina and a faux fur