My Mum…

Mum

Today is the 3rd anniversary of my mother’s death.

We have been in such a whirl as a family that I have hardly had a moment to sit and dwell.

However this summer we have taken a house sitting position in Florida where I am working on a book about the last four years of my parents’ lives.

I am spending many hours re-living the crisis that began with a fall my father took causing him to break his hip and change their lives as they knew it…

…forever.

I am beginning to understand what it means to be a Mum.

I am trying to grasp how it feels to be a daughter.

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We both had our own lives, influenced by our mothers.

I didn’t always understand my Mum;

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She knew me though because I had a gene pool that overflowed with,

quirks and traits,

mannerisms and fancies,

habits and ways

that she recognized from family members past and present.

The fleetingness of life on earth visited me one morning.

I was walking the dogs just as dawn was breaking.

We stood in an old familiar garden where we paused to look across the canal

Canal

And as we walked on I came across a flowering cactus.

Astonished I took photographs of this marvelous sight,

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and in the afternoon walked with hubs to share my morning vision.

But the lovely flowers were closed and hung like festive bulbs upon the towering plant.

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I wondered if it only flowered at night?

So later, very much later, we walked around the corner…

…and lo and behold the delicate, perfect blooms, that looked as if they needed sun to call them forth, were glowing under the gaze of a star filled sky.

Cactus

Their radiance, shone in the artificial light of our torch.

Twice more I caught the open blooms just before they closed,

and each morning I stopped and looked,

soaked in the glorious sight,

breathed the perfumed air.

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Then quite suddenly they began to wilt and fade, the flowers grew fewer until one morning the buds just hung in death.

For a brief,  sweet time I was offered a delicate miracle of pale yellow flowers.

I took the gift as I take my gift of salvation

With Grace.

My mother’s life was long,

She bloomed radiantly in sunny and starry skies,

She perfumed the air I breathed with her smiles

She gave me life and let me go.

Then quite suddenly she began to wilt and fade, until one evening she was there no more.

Rest in Peace Mummy.

With Sweet Amens.

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