HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM!

Had she lived, my Mum would have been 98 years old today, but she died just before Christmas two years ago.  This was the photograph that sat on her coffin, taken by my sister, Karen, and it is such a great likeness of her in her later years.  

It’s fair to say I had quite a stormy relationship with my Mum over the years, particularly when I was a teenager - but I guess that’s par for the course - and things haven’t changed much in 60 years - teenagers still have issues with their Mums!  However, in the last year of her life, I got much closer to her, and we had lots of chats about her earlier life, where she was born, where she lived and about her time in the Army, based in different places in the UK - although she never said anything about her liaison with an American GI!  

This has all come to light because Mr. HCB and I had our DNA tested and I just wish Mum was still alive so that I could ask her questions - and believe me, there would be lots of them!  It’s great though, that I have found a half sister living in America;  we are in touch quite often and hope that one day we will meet.

Mum would have laughed if she could have seen all the palaver I went to in order to get this shot.  She loved flowers, and I had hoped that our snowdrops in the garden would have been out, but as they are quite late this year, I decided that I would stand the orchid my friend, Linda, gave me for Christmas, at the side of her photograph.  

However, the shot wasn’t quite right with light shining on the frame, so that had to come off - then it needed something round it, so my mauve/purple scarf came in handy.  As well as those colours being my favourites, they were Mum’s too, so that worked out well.  Then the photograph wasn’t high enough, so Mum would have seen the funny side of me putting the photograph on top of an egg box and then making sure that the scarf covered that - the things we do to get a good Blip!

Thankfully, Mum had all her faculties until she died - she liked nothing better than doing a crossword puzzle or a Word search and I often used to sit with her while she did her puzzles.  She also enjoyed watching “Songs of Praise” on television on Sunday lunchtime, and I was surprised that she knew most of the hymns so we enjoyed singing them together.  In fact, as she slipped into that deep sleep just before she died, I sang to her and read several prayers from her little Prayer Book and also the 23rd Psalm.  A very precious time and memory for me. 

So, here is Betty, a treasured Mum, Grandmother and Great Grandmother - smiling out at us and I’m sure she is also smiling down on us, especially today.  We miss you!  We need to start planning for 2024 because her greatest wish was to live long enough to get a 100th birthday telegram from the Queen - but as she didn’t make it, we are going to have a party to celebrate the occasion and Mum certainly liked a party!  

“When a Mother dies,
     we lose a piece of who we are.
We lose the person
     whose story provides
          the beginning of our own.”
Anon