A different weekly update this time. For Rachel and I, our mothers are occupying quite a bit of our thoughts and conversations. They are entirely different to each other with extraordinary contrasts.
In spite of the contrasts, they have come to have quite a few things in common. They’re both widows, both had one child and both are fiercely independent. They grew up through the wartime and married in the 1950s where their careers then ended.
However, there are some striking differences.
Rachel’s mum, aka Grandma, is frail and increasingly not quite ‘with it’, so to speak. If I ask how she’s managing to do something, like going upstairs, she retorts “no I don’t need any help, I’m perfectly alright”. It is said with a certain tone and succinctness that few would detect, yet the underlying meaning is clear enough.
Actually it’s a case of ‘I know that you know that I know’ you’re not managing very well but it is never really admitted; a kind of stiff upper lip Britishness. Perhaps a generation thing, something about always wanting to be self reliant and not needing any help. It seems the biggest barrier is admitting defeat and she carries on with a few things, just as a matter of principle and not being willing to completely give in. In all honesty I don’t blame her and question if I would be any different when I’m well into my nineties.
She sometimes gets a little confused, or forgets the odd word. If I play it right, we play a little game as we try to guess the word she’s trying to find. This often results in a little giggle, which bringing some lightness to the situation and this is so nice, rather than another reminder of the inevitable decline. The giggle, the husky laugh and the smile might only last a second but at least it’s there and there is something endearing about this. We need to cling on to this.
And my mother, she’s quite a contrast. Last week we drove down to Weston and stayed over night and this was so good – we are ‘bubbled’ together and the easement of the Lockdown allows us to do this. We then came back to our house for a couple of days. As I write, I am sitting in the back seat of the car as we return her to Weston.
She is so chatty! I think she missed her vocation of being a tour guide as we have a running commentary of the passing scenery and she compliments the soft ride in our car.
Mum is a nostalgic person and often talks about her past and she has had more than her fair share of grief. Her father died while she was an evacuee in Weston during wartime. Unusually in that era he was a conscientious objector which in turn caused him to remain living in London. He was set to work making lenses for gunsights etc on account of his profession as a manufacturing optician and diamond cutter. Soon he became ill and was hospitalised.
His death happened while Mum and her little sister were living in an evacuee’s hostel out of London and surprisingly it was not through falling bombs or bullets but instead it was cancer. My grandmother regularly visited Mum and her little sister in Weston. It was then when my Mum saw her dressed in black she knew her father must have died and yet her mother couldn’t bring herself to share the news until after his funeral. My mother recounts how she cried and cried at night through missing her daddy, yet keeping it from her little sister. That was hard for her as a young girl and I think it has shaped her whole life since.
Some years later her brother died as a young man in his early early twenties. This again deeply affected her. I wonder whether these heavy losses have ever been settled in her mind; I don’t think they have or ever will. Perhaps that’s a sign and foundation of her deep love for us as she cherishes every moment we are together.
So there you are, a different glimpse into our family life. Our two mothers, whilst both quite elderly, have been shaped entirely differently. They express their love and emotions differently with a matter-of-fact logic alongside a heartfelt affection; and yet both are increasingly dependent on us.
We are at that stage in life where we cherish our mothers as life’s telescope changes our perception of life itself with different generations following along behind each other. I feel as if my own place in the generation chain has become clearer. Perhaps soon I might blog about our family trees which are as different as chalk and cheese….