A Year to the Day

We’re approaching a bunch of first anniversaries: Ter’s retirement from public service (May 25), me visiting Mum at home (May 28), me visiting Mum in hospital before her diagnosis (June 14), me visiting Mum in hospital after her diagnosis (June 16), Mum’s last conversation with me (June 22), the day she went to hospice (June 26) and finally, the day she passed (June 29).

I won’t post about every one of those dates (I know—thank the gods!), but today marks the first Mother’s Day without my mother. It also marks the last time I saw her dressed and out of the house—we’ve never been big on Hallmark occasions in our family, but Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were excuses for Ter and me to meet the folks for lunch, and last May was our last excuse to do it with Mum.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course. Ter had an inkling, but not me, the Queen of Denial.

A year later, it’s Mother’s Day once more. I’m glad our clan never made so big a deal of the occasion that it’s an anniversary of great sadness, because it’s not. But I did spend a few minutes in the Ocean Rom this morning, thanking Mum for being exactly what I needed exactly when I needed her—even if I didn’t always appreciate it. I’ve spent some of the past twelve months regretting things I did or said to her in my formative years, until a friend observed that we can’t expect our present selves to have done anything differently from the way our past selves did it then.

I’ve also learned that everyone means something different to everyone else. Mum will be viewed through a different lens depending on which of us is looking—though I’m pretty sure each of my sibs, and Dad too, will tell you that she was as good a mother as any of us could have hoped for. She always did her best, even when not at her best, even if she didn’t know it.

Truth is, that’s how it is for each of us. For you, for me, for my parents and sibs and friends and colleagues and neighbours and countrymen—all we are doing at any given time is the best we can do. On another day we might do better, but not today. Today is as good as today can get.

Love you, Mum.