Happy birthday, Mum. xzx

Somehow today has crept up on me without me really being prepared. I wasn't even ready for half term after the haphazard start to the academic year, let alone this, and so it's caught me off guard and, because of that, I haven't been able to distract myself from the urge to wallow, as I normally would.


She's been gone years now and a lot of the time it's not like she's really gone, just that I haven't seen her for a while. Having been desperate to move away in my teens, when I finally made it to London, there was always some distance between us, so it took a very long time for her absence to really make itself felt - especially as I was living in her house for a few years after. After moving back to London and having bounced around celebrating my return, grief finally hit me like a massive punch in the face a year after moving out of her house. I was relieved by the pain of it. I'd quietly wondered if I wasn't really missing her, if I wasn't a very good daughter, as if all those distraught miserable days hadn't happened. When grief finally hit me in London it was a solid, physical, deep hit. Before, I'd had the comfort of her things around me. I'd been able to keep her home as she'd like it as a testament to her. She was there, but elsewhere. In London, there were no ties to bind us. I had a few trinkets and tit-bits to remember her, but they were wholly inadequate to the task.

And then work went mental, life got complicated, I was distracted. Grief would sneak in on random days. A woman's face, jeans, hair would trigger something and her absence would return. Then life would wash over it all again. It seemed the distance between us was a handy buffer against loss; we hadn't been been close in life, so there was less to miss in death.

The distance was much more than she'd wanted. Mum made absolutely sure I visited home as much as I could, but I was always reluctant. I was an arse. I was only just growing out of my ridiculously teenage approach to the mother-daughter relationship when she got ill. Had she been around for a bit longer, we'd probably have lots more happy memories.

Not that we didn't have a good time together - she was hilarious and often found me so - but it was fraught. Two strong women are going to clash, that's as certain as death and taxes. We tried, but it often failed. One birthday, I whisked her off to Venice as a treat. Fabulous, no? No. The Ryanair flights were at impossible o'clock and we were both ratty for most of the trip, the fancy restaurant I treated us to stank of pond (as does much of Venice), we misjudged the November weather and spent days stalking around sweating in our winter knits. The trip was lovely, Venice was stunning, but the gilt edge of luxurious indulgence was just a tiny bit tarnished, when it should have been mint.

That was the essence of our relationship. I know she loved me, and I hope she knows I love her, but it didn't always work out as we wanted. And so my grieving process was not the stuff of movies. I guess no one's is. Family is rarely straightforward and death probably less so. Lots of friends have far more complex goodbyes to handle. We at least had some notice. I did at least have the chance to tell her, in her hospital bed, that I loved her. I do still wonder if she had been expecting something else when she asked if I had anything I wanted to say to her. I was too dumbstruck and nervous - of my own mum - to ask what she meant. I just have to hope that was what she wanted. Everyone likes to be told you love them, right? I hope my attempts at wordsmithing didn't make her expect something more profound. Or some bedside confession. It was beyond me. I was practically mute and felt as small and scared as I have ever done. I had - and still have - absolutely no clue what she was getting at.

In some ways it has been easier to be a better daughter without her around. I see the irony, although don't relish it. And in many, many ways it has been harder. Mum, who was a force to be reckoned with, a force of hilarity and passion and never someone you could overlook or overshadow, has gone and her absence is growing. My memories of her are fading, however hard I try to clutch on to them. For six months or so after she'd gone, I couldn't picture her healthy face. I was terrified I'd only ever be able to call up that skeletal version of her that faltered around the hospital ward. She was, thanks to gallons of morphine, in generally good spirits in most of these memories. My brain is probably being kind and saving me from the worst of it. Now she's a series of photographs and the arbitrary memories attached to them. Neither of these do her justice.

I clutch for memories or anecdotes and miss. This morning, I wanted to do something for her. I woke up feeling bereft. I wanted to listen to her favourite music, do what she would enjoy doing, eat what she would like. I couldn't think what those things would be. There are some obvious things she's associated with, but these things become stale. With her gone, there is no longer any hope of anything new. Those things, her things, are almost cliche. Posting a few old YouTube links to songs she sang in a band or at karaoke, so were not necessarily her favourites, but suited her vocal range, doesn't seem right (although I did it anyway - who doesn't like a bit of Patsy Cline?). She loved the charts, she was always up-to-the-minute. I'd probably be exasperated by her musical choices today. I was when she was alive.

Last year, she was the centre of so much of what I did. The marathon, the fundraising, all orbited around her. I'm not really sure what she'd have made of it. I know she'd hate to be themed with cancer and that was what I did to her. I feel guilty for exploiting her, for that's what I did. Marketing brain switched on and so I begged for funds on every day that was hers. It was all for a good cause and all that, but she was so much more than a woman who died of cancer. But what? A Star Bar fan? I suspect she'd have moved on to Paul A Young by now (if not by choice, at least through my gift buying). She'd probably still love red wine, but would she have stuck with Shiraz or moved on to Malbec, as I have? Death brings an end to the infinite possibilities of change. Everything stops. We've seen all the photos, we've heard most of the stories. She's been frozen in time and that is the very opposite of who she was. Death is a terrible injustice in so many unexpected ways.

But despite her experiences being finite, the resources to remind me of her being limited, my interpretation of her as a human still evolves as I myself evolve as a human. In processing Mum's death, I've discovered things about her that I should have appreciated when she was alive, but was not yet capable of doing so. Slowly, I am developing those abilities. There are many holes and sometimes her memory feels as if it's evaporating, but it will never vanish. Despite her being gone, there are still so many things I can learn about my Mum.

And I'm also learning about myself. Today is hurts, but that hurt makes me feel like a much better daughter.