It has been four years since I lost Mummy.
Using this expression to describe death conjures up carelessness on my part!
It also doesn’t ring true when referring to me. My children have always called me, The Great Finder.
Nothing is lost with me around.
Mummy is no exception.
I have spent the last year finishing and editing my book about her end days and she has been on my mind.
I miss her gentle presence.
For more than five decades she knew what I was up to, the pattern of my days, the flaring of my emotions.
Changes have occurred in my life that I want to talk to her about and I am startled afresh that she’s no longer here to reflect my feelings, listen to me with the ear of her heart, help me with my point of view.
I both mourned and rejoiced over the the selling of our family home, our wildlife son’s tying of the knot and our youngest child’s flight from the coop.
I experienced the impermanence of homelessness, the empty soul of a child moving out of state, the uninspiring search for a place to call our own.
I navigated a shift in my life’s purpose, a loosening of ties and the bitter sweet joy of finding the land God has chosen for us.
All without a word from Mummy.
Moving into a new house un-touched by our extended family traditions is the hardest adjustment to come to terms with.
I can no longer picture her quietly sitting in any of my rooms.
She isn’t with me on the other end of the line as I potter in my garden pulling up weeds and dead heading the roses while we put the world to rights.
Sharing jam making techniques with her after harvesting my wild plums becomes a whimsical thought.
She will never stand at my new kitchen table and help me fold laundry, or knock a glass of wine over a sketch I am making of our tree lined back forty.
I read one of her scone recipes, I look at her china brought home from London, I sort through the letters she wrote, I watch the videos I took when she visited,
“That thing is so intrusive,” she said when I caught her on film nodding in my direction.
Her voice resonates in so many ways and returns the past to me as if it were only yesterday!
“My mother will never see this beautiful place,” I murmured sadly to Hubs.
As if she heard my lament a card landed at my feet when I was thinning out some books in my overflowing shelves.
I bent and picked it up,
I smiled at the cartoon of a couple, hand in hand, standing in the gates of Buckingham Palace.
I opened it up and read the words my father had penned,
Their good wishes from 1985 (when we moved into our first house as pregnant, newly weds), were as fitting today as they had been then.
Thirty years folded away. How long had it sat between two books forgotten and unread, waiting for such a time as this? (My favorite verse from Esther 4:14.)
A subtle reminder from God that He is with me and Mummy is safe with Him.
I miss your gentle presence Mummy.
But you are not lost, you will always be where I can find you, right here in my heart.
Rest in Peace.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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