The First Anniversary

Today marks a year since you left us.

I don’t really know what to write for today, but suffice to say that even though some of the rawness has dissipated, I still miss you terribly and it certainly does not take much to make me shed a tear for you. Grief is a strange beast indeed.

So, I decided that I would post the three poems that I wrote last February, because you always loved my poetry and I do this in honour of you, my lovely Mum.

DEATH – 08/02/2020

The Last Breath

We waited as your laboured breath slowed. 

And the pulse in your neck stopped.

You became still.

It was confirmed and you found peace at last.

We sat with you as we waited for the doctor and carried on around you.

As you lay sleeping.

Talking, laughing and clearing your room, like it was a normal day.

As your body settled into death.

And we hugged and kissed your hard, cold body.

Before they gently covered your face and took you away.

COFFIN – 21/02/2020

Lying there.

So smartly dressed.

Looking as you always did.

Beautiful.

And I wasn’t scared.

And through my tears I kissed and stroked your face.

And tucked the poem I wrote for you against your heart.

To accompany you on your final way.

FUNERAL – 24/02/2020

I have a Mum-shaped hole in my heart.

And it’s hard to accept that I’ll never see you again.

That I won’t hear your stumbling English.

Or see your beautiful smile.

Oh, yes, your last year was tough.

And we shouted and railed at each other.

But I loved you then, I love you now, I will love you forever.

My beautiful mother.

The First Christmas.

Ah, Mum!

This year has surely been an awful one, and not just because of Covid-19.

It has been truly awful because of not having you around anymore. And how quickly has the time passed since that day in February when we watched your life slip through our fingers. Our greedy hands wanting to grab everything we could that was you.

And it has monumentally been made harder to grieve for you when I have been on my own due to lockdowns and working from home and there have been days when the mountain of grief has been too high to climb. When hearing an Edith Piaf or Charles Trenet song on my playlist has stopped me in my tracks and I have had to breathe through the pain so that I can get on with my work. Goodness, your death hit me hard.

Not being able to meet up with my friends and enjoy an evening out with them to help take my mind off my grief has been really difficult; video chats with friends are all very well, but they can never replace sharing wine (or gin), food and laughter in person. At least I have my sister as my support bubble, and we are helping each other get through this, with a lot of tears, laughter and memories.

In those quiet moments of denial that I still have, I imagine that you are on a long holiday in France and will come back at some point. So, in the spirit of that thought, I know that you are having a wonderful time and your Christmas en famille will be a fabulous one, just like the many wonderful ones we spent all together sitting around the table in our home in Sainte Geneviève.

Don’t worry about me, Mum, I’ll be fine.

xx

Chats in The Garden With Uncle Charlie

Once again, I am transported back to those wonderful visits to Uncle Charlie and Aunty Georgie.

To times full of laughter, full of lovely food, of jazz records being played and, if we were lucky, Uncle Charlie would play a few notes on his saxophone (he was in a band when he was younger).

Of the two times I stayed with them for a week, while Mum and Dad were away, one of the things I really enjoyed was spending time outside chatting with Uncle Charlie as he tended his garden. He always took an interest in what you had to say and it didn’t matter how old you were, he listened with great interest, asked sensible questions that did not confuse you and didn’t talk over you.

When I was a small child, I remember Mum used to listen to a daily radio soap opera on BBC 2 called Waggoners’ Walk. Just think of The Archers but set in Hampstead! It ran from 1969 to 1980 and was broadcast in the afternoons. Each episode lasted 15 minutes.

Now, in 1969, I was at primary school and as my school was less than two minutes from my house, I would be home in time to listen to it with Mum and I remember looking forward to the broadcast as I sat in the kitchen with her while she cooked her wonderful food. I didn’t understand a lot of what was said as they covered adult subject matter that a child of my age probably shouldn’t have been allowed to hear but I was fascinated, and it kept me quiet which would have pleased Mum!

What does this have to do with Uncle Charlie? You might be asking.

So, back to that lovely garden.

Listening to Waggoners’ Walk got my imagination going and the chats between the two of us became me making up a soap opera that I would narrate to Uncle Charlie. And because I was there for a week, Uncle Charlie would always ask what happened next, the next day when our chats resumed.

I have no recollection of the names of the characters I made up, where they were based or what the storyline was, I just remember it all making sense in my head and I want to remember that the stories all flowed nicely every day when I would tell him the next instalment. They probably didn’t but that never mattered because that wonderful man never pulled me up on it and was as interested in the next episode as he had been for the first one.

The First Birthday

You would have been 93 today.

Happy Birthday, Mum.

This time last year, you were in hospital, again, and blissfully unaware that it was your birthday and you didn’t realise that the cards we put on your table were for you. You just smiled and said thank you.

And the following day, when you moved into that wonderful nursing home, we put your birthday cards around your room, amongst the photographs and pictures that we had taken in to add a personal touch, and make your room more homely, and the staff wished you a happy birthday and you continued to be unaware that it had been your special day.

You just smiled your wonderful smile and thanked them.

The Constant Love

Grieving while on Covid-19 lockdown is weird.

I know my sister and friends are at the end of a telephone call or a video chat, but it is still weird.

And never far from the back of my mind is the thought that if Mum was still alive in the nursing home, we would have been frantic with fear and worry because we would not have been able to visit her, and that because of her age, and extremely fragile health at the end, she would have probably succumbed to this foul pestilence that is ravaging the world.  And to not have been there at her end breaks my heart just to think about it.  So, as much as I miss her, I am glad that she is out of harms way, if you see what I mean.

That being said, the last few days have been a tough roller coaster of emotions as I remember this time last year, when Mum’s health started to rapidly decline and Alzheimer’s moved in.  Today, grief knocked on the door of my heart and paid yet another visit and I had to stop work for a while and as these words appeared in my head, I wrote them down.

The Constant Love

It started with our birth.
It continued with our nurturing.
And carried on.
A hug when we were sad.
A telling off when we were bad.
We had clean clothes.
Wonderful food cooked fresh every day.
You kept the house spotless – the perfect homemaker.
And you loved us.

It ended with you leaving us.
Watching you in your last year took my breath away.
Your physical health issues,
Were joined by another,
When the icy fingers of Alzheimer’s claimed you.
We could do nothing but watch you disappear.
And cry when it became more than we could bear.
Yet, in the dwindling moments when you could still understand,
You loved us.

And wherever you are now,
I know peace walks with you.
And I see you
Avec la famille.
Happy to see them all again.
And though we are left behind,
To suffer this monstrous grieving.
Know that we love and miss you terribly,
And we know that you loved us.

Funeral

I have a Mum-shaped hole in my heart.

And it’s hard to accept I’ll never see you again.

That I won’t hear your stumbling English.

Or see your beautiful smile.

Oh, yes, your last year was tough,

And we shouted and railed at each other.

But I loved you then, I love you now, I will love you forever.

My beautiful mother.

8th February 2020: The Last Breath

We waited as your laboured breath slowed. And the pulse in your neck stopped.

You became still.

It was confirmed and you found peace at last.

We sat with you as we waited for the doctor, and carried on around you as you lay sleeping.

Talking, laughing and clearing your room, like it was a normal day.

As your body cooled, and settled into death.

And we hugged and kissed your hard, cold body before they gently covered your face and took you away.

Is it time to go home yet…?

I have been thinking back all those years ago when I first started working for this company. The excitement of a new job and meeting new people. Of not being unemployed anymore, watching your redundancy running out and the need to get a job!

How times have changed.

Six years on and I am sitting in the office with a pile of excruciatingly dull, tedious and utterly boring work to do. The same questions being asked by the same people who have been given the same answers to those same questions, over and over and over again.  It’s soul destroying but what with the horrendous issues going on in my personal life at the moment, I just don’t have the energy to resign and look for another job.

Nor will I…

I am doing exactly what I did at my last place when my team were being marginalised and treated badly. I am digging my heels in, because history seems to be repeating itself. And I say now, what I said back in 2010 approximately: that I am not leaving until I either retire or they make me redundant. Whichever comes first. I will not leave without getting money out of them. They don’t call me bolshie for nothing!  Two years later after I first said that, I got my wish, as did they, because it was only a matter of time before they could legitimately get rid of me.

It is probably not the most brilliant decision I have made but honestly, I have never worked for a company that doesn’t seem to know what to do with my small team. We have been in finance, then procurement then finance and back into procurement. Not to mention the physical moves to various offices we have had to put up with.

Make up your mind!

There are rumbles that they might be pointing their beady eye in our direction again at some point. There may be some truth in that, but whereas once I would have been shit scared of being made redundant, I survived the last experience and, if it happens again, I will survive this one. However, if you are going to do that, could you do it at the end of October, as I will have a full six years of reckonable service under my belt by then.  I just like things neat and tidy, thanks.

If they do put me up for the chop, I may ask for early retirement, as I am of a certain age and could be eligible.  I would still need to look for a job but maybe a part-time one to top up the funds (sadly, I can’t afford to fully retire yet).

Or, I could just win the ruddy lottery and skip happily into the sunset. No, ignore that. I meant walk sedately into the sunset. Hmm, limp into the sunset, holding my walking stick just in case, because safety first, you never know…

Melting Moments – cooking with Aunty Georgie

Aunty Georgie was a very good cook and when ever we visited her and Uncle Charlie, there was always an array of delicious food on offer and we never went home hungry.  Lunch was always excellent and there was always cake for tea.

She used to run cooking classes for the elderly, but that is another blog for another time…

On one occasion, when I had the good luck to spend a week with them when I was about 10 years old, it might have been on that last Saturday as she was preparing our lunch and maybe getting ahead of herself with regards to what she was going to cook when my family came to collect me the next day, that she asked me if I would like to make some Melting Moments biscuits.

Quite often I would sit in the kitchen with her as she cooked, chatting about this and that, and sometimes I would help her with simple tasks.  She had a wonderful box of recipe cards that I used to love looking at, flicking through them, staring at the pictures and wondering what the dishes tasted like, the ones that she had not already made, of course and this is probably why she asked if I would like to cook something.

I am no great cook now, and certainly wasn’t at that age but I said OK, I was happy to give them a go.

I took the recipe card.  They looked easy enough and there weren’t many ingredients so I didn’t think I would have any trouble making them, and besides, with Aunty Georgie there to guide me, nothing could go wrong!  

When I was looking for a picture of what they looked like for this post, there are several types of Melting Moments biscuits out there, but my ones had a glacé cherry on the top and I am sure they were made with oats, but some recipes I have seen use desiccated coconut.  This link is the closest to what I remember they looked like when I made them.

Anyway, she put out the ingredients for me along with her set of scales and kept an eye on what was probably my first trip into the world of cooking.  And off I went weighing this, mixing that and then shaping the dough into little balls, placing them onto a baking tray and putting the cherry on the top of each one.  Once ready, she put the tray into the oven and I helped her to clear the table and sat waiting for them to cook.

Uncle Charlie had been in the garden, I think, and he came into the kitchen all full of smiles and laughter, as he always was, and exclaimed at the wonderful smell.  A fortuitous arrival as Aunty Georgie had not long taken the tray out of the oven and these little discs of edible joy were sitting proudly cooling on a rack.  I had made plenty, (mainly as I knew, or hoped Dad would like them as he was fond of his biscuits!) so I had one there and then and enjoyed the (glacé cherry) fruits of my labour.  As did Uncle Charlie and Aunty Georgie who both exclaimed that they were delicious!  See what I mean about them being wonderful people?

I eagerly awaited for lunch the next day when I could proudly offer my plate of Melting Moments to Dad who as expected, did enjoy them and ate quite a few of them with his coffee.  He did love his biscuits.

 

This Bint, she is a moving…

…, well not that far, still in the same building, just to another area on this floor.

A while ago, I wrote this post about how many times I had moved about in my working life and I was reminded of it because everyone is being relocated to a new area.

I moved to Bank in July 2017, and thought that would be the end of it.

No.

Wrong.

Knowing how much I have already moved during my time with this company, I should have known better than to think there would be no more changes!

These floor relocations are taking place over the weekend and will be the third time I have moved since coming here two years ago.

So, number 15 on the linked post should now read:

15. Bank – 1 floor, 3 desks.

I should point out that number 11 on that list is when I joined this company.

Thank goodness I am on leave all next week!