This blog post has been on my mind for a while. It hasn’t been comfortable writing it but I like to spill my thoughts and feelings into words sometimes. It has been a tough year, but hope is becoming less of a glimmer and more of a sunbeam now.
A year ago today, we buried my beloved Mum. She had been living with metastasized cancer for almost three years but she kept her wit right up until her last day on this planet which was wholly spent asleep. The day that she passed away was a day that I had been dreading, not only since she got her diagnosis but for as long as I can remember. As a very young child, I can recall in my nightly prayers praying that God would make sure that “Mummy and Daddy didn’t die or hurt themselves”; I think both as a child, and as a middle-aged woman, I wanted my parents to live forever.
My Mum and I were very close. We’d go on shopping trips (our clothes tastes differed greatly as they would between generations) or outings for coffee. After my radiotherapy finished, and as a belated 21st birthday present, my Mum took me to Paris for the weekend – that was a time of much laughter and fun as we tried out our sketchy French – particularly my Mum’s strange pronunciation – everywhere we went. After I got married, I called Mum and Dad every other day and, since Covid, I phoned twice every day (I still phone my Dad at 10am and 5.30pm everyday now). I still expect my Mum to pick up the phone and answer with her customary “Hi, Juney – I’m being very lazy but thought I would wait for your call before I got up”. I still fight the urge to pick up the phone and let her know about conversations I have had with people she knew, or if I notice an announcement in the paper that a friend of hers has passed away. It’s the weirdest feeling. With my husband’s mother having passed away six weeks before my own Mum, I am suddenly thrown into the role of family matriarch – something I still can’t get my head around. Am I not too young to be a matriarch? Also, who do I go to for advice on things? My Mum was my fount of knowledge, wisdom, and experience – I tapped into it frequently. Now, there is nobody. I just have to hobble through and hope for the best.
I’m so thankful that we had her for 81 years. 81 sounds old, but my Mum always looked at least 10 years younger than her age. And she was active – oh boy! Intensely house proud, she would be cleaning their flat every day, or going out for long, long walks with my Dad – a past-time they both loved. She also loved her coffee mornings with her former work colleagues with whom she had kept in contact since her retirement. Then April 2019 happened, and things gradually came to a stop.
It’s not been an easy year. I think, for me, I have found it hard to take ownership of the fact that Mum has gone. I have a Christian faith and so I know she has gone to a better place, but I weirdly can’t think of it as being my Mum who has gone. Only four people have asked how I have been following her death: two of my best friends, my PhD supervisor, and the wife of the minister of the church we now go to. Everybody else expressed their sorrow but then immediately asked “How are your Dad and brother coping?” Every time. Nobody asked how I was doing. This isn’t meant to come across as a personal pity-party, but I think this has fed into me thinking, and feeling, that I have to be strong for my Dad and brother as it is their wife and Mum who has gone, more than mine.
Sadly, both my husband and I have had to deal with our respective losses largely by ourselves. The local church (which both my parents [Dad had been an Elder there] and my husband had been going to regularly, and was indeed one of the pianists at, for over a decade. I stopped going after 2012 for much the same reasons as the ones I will give now) remained silent. Nobody came out to visit us, or gave us much needed spiritual support during our grief. Nobody from the church phoned us up to ask how we were and if we would like a visit or some practical help. Nobody asked after our kids who had lost both of their grandmothers in the space of six weeks. Only one couple out of the whole congregation turned up one evening with a prepared meal and some baking for us – we so appreciated it. I know people are busy, but aren’t church families supposed to be there to support those in need? And isn’t that support supposed to come from those in leadership roles? We really hoped that someone would just come to the door and offer us some solace through Bible verses or prayer. The church has Elders, and while we weren’t members of the church, we were ‘associate members’ – why didn’t any of them come and see us, especially as so many of them knew my Mum and, indeed, us? We were both feeling incredibly numb and vulnerable; both of us hate asking people for help (mainly because in the past, when I have, nothing happened). People saying, “I’ll pray for you” became, to me, merely a Christian-ised way of signing off from a conversation. How often I wanted to yell “Pray WITH me! I don’t know how to deal with this!” but the opportunity to do so didn’t arise. Surely church Elders still do pastoral visits these days, don’t they? I know one lady (who wasn’t even our Elder) used to drop by with the church magazine in the years following my cancer surgery. On the occasions she dropped by and I was in, I enjoyed seeing her and having a chat. She was the only person who used to do so. Now that the magazine is digital, there is tumbleweed. Don’t get me wrong – I appreciated any prayers that were going, but when you feel your own already shaky and dwindling faith draining away further, they seemed to lose their importance. They seemed empty. I used to wonder if people really were praying for us, or was it just the ‘right thing’ to say? [I like to think the former as I do aim to find the best in people].
So, locally, we were floundering quite a lot. We felt that others thought that we shouldn’t be mourning our mothers as they were both in their 80s, and then we questioned whether we were making too much of it. But, as I’ve mentioned, we were both close to our mothers – as were the kids to their grandmothers – and if you can’t grieve your parents, who can you grieve? I like to think that if any of my friends fell ill, that I would provide some form of help (indeed, I have provided meals for friends who have been in need over recent years among other things). But, it’s sad (and more than a little disappointing) that when the person in need is yourself and help – whether it be practical, emotional, or spiritual – is lacking.
Well, that all changed when – during COVID – we started virtually attending a church in Edinburgh whose members have helped us immensely over the past year. It’s not Church of Scotland this time but an Independent church (doesn’t belong to a denomination). Despite us living 23 miles away, the minister (and on one occasion his wife) visited us four times over four Fridays last March/April and provided the spiritual support we were so badly needing. In addition, we have made other friends there who genuinely pray WITH us in these early (and currently uncertain) days. They are keen for us to get involved in different things there, which I am so happy about – I like to use my (recently rusted) ‘gifts’. One of our main reasons for moving home is so that we can be nearer this congregation and, basically, start again. I have learned so much from these experiences – mostly things which I have taken for granted (or thought that other people would be doing so held off doing them myself).
Out of my experience 11 years ago and, more recently our mothers’ deaths, I have learned how important it is to look out for people who are hurting and to actually DO something about it. When we move, I want to become active in visiting people – I like chatting – so that they never feel isolated as we have done. Although I miss you, Mum, more than you know, thank you for helping me to realise that at times of greatest need, the best thing I can do is be there for whoever needs it. Even if ‘being there’ means not talking but just being there. It’s what you have done for others over your lifetime. It may take me a little while longer to take ownership of the fact that you have gone, but with a little help from our new friends, we’ll get by.
June's Jottings 