The night Mum died was both surreal and yet, perfectly expected. I’m not really sure that can make sense unless you’ve watched someone actually stop being right there in front of you. It’s both terrifying and also, an unbelievable privilege.
My Mum died of cancer. It took hold of her suddenly, savagely and left us without her in our lives before we even had the chance to digest what was happening. We are not unique, her cancer diagnosis was not unique, cancer itself is not unique, but Betty Clarke the person, was unique. And I’m only just starting to understand this now.
I’m also starting to realise I didn’t know enough about her childhood or younger years, beyond what I can piece together with scarce voiced recollections and photos. I did, though, know what she was like as a mother. She was strict yet in hindsight, fair. She was tough and incredibly strong in the face of many adversities. She loved us beyond measure and was often candidly awkward displaying this. I know she was one of the good ones, the type of mother I could only hope to be.
I don’t know what happened in those 40 or so years before I was in her life and this is one of my biggest regrets. I guess I always thought I had more time to request these details. What annoys me most about myself is that I am constantly telling anyone who will listen that “I just love to know people’s stories” yet the one person who gave me the best chance at mine, I didn’t even bother to learn.
I hadn’t watched the photo montage I’d put together for her funeral, until today. I guess I just couldn’t. What gets me (beyond the long overdue flood of tears) is that Mum appears to be beaming in almost every shot. Either that, or she was engrossed with the baby or child she was holding. I still remember that look she would get on her face when the two worlds of pride and overwhelming emotion collided.
My mother was a very simple lady. Her own mother died birthing her sibling when Mum was just six years old, leaving her and her brother in the care of their father. My Grandfather was a loving and hard working father, but he simply wasn’t equipped to deal with the simultaneous responsibility and grief.
He remarried and this new wife was, by all accounts, not a particularly warm lady. Maybe, simply, no one was ever going to be good enough to replace the mother she had never gotten to know or maybe, and by all accounts, my mother’s stepmother was truly horrid, but for whatever reason, my mother and her brother were shipped off to boarding school.
The in-between years here are vague. Mum set off into the wide world after school and took jobs in bars, caring for the elderly, and eventually settled in Mitchelton in Queensland, buying her own general store. This is where she met my father. I’m not sure it was love at first sight but she certainly felt something for him in the beginning. Of course recollections when discussing someone you now almost loathe are somewhat skewed however I distinctly remember asking her once “You did love Dad once, didn’t you?” To which she answered, “Yes, of course, that’s why I married him”.
My father was a brilliant yet seemingly troubled alcoholic and that is how I, as a child, knew him. To know him as a man that was a functioning member of society will forever be foreign to me, but I did recognise that at one time, when I was younger, he was not this man and they had some kind of relationship that led them to believe they could make a family and a life.
Mum attempted and failed to fall pregnant a great number of times. Her miscarriage tally is again, unknown. Again I can’t believe I didn’t have this conversation. In today’s world, she suffered from what is known as endometriosis, identified easily enough today. Back then, it was just a mysterious “women’s” problem. In 1975 it was certainly coming to the end of the “easy” adoption cycle but Mum was lucky enough to adopt the boy and girl she longed for, my brother and I.
And quite simply, this is what Mum was put on this earth to do. Nurture and love babies. All babies. When we were older, she was a Nanny for the children of close friends. We were always her primary focus. She didn’t want a career, a man or even a hobby. We were all she wanted and needed. This used to perplex me. In a way it still does, yet the older I get it becomes less. Mum discovered what made her happy and isn’t happiness, after all, the Holy Grail?
I look at my life. How lucky I have been. I’ve had a loving mother, one that was always there to make me feel safe, loved, level and understood. No matter how old you are, you are still ever mindful of what your Mum thinks and I’d say as a consequence, I dropped the ball in many ways since she passed away. I stopped being the kind of mother that she always was. I’ve stopped being selfless and kind and someone who put their family’s needs before their own. In short, I’ve stopped being someone she would be proud of.
Maybe that’s why today I’ve suddenly been struck by the crushing thought that I just really need her. That I miss her so very much and more than anything, I wish I’d learned more of her story when she was around to tell me.
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DEBRIEF DAILY