Lynmouth from Lynton, North Devon
I’m not a great one for families, after all, I’ve been fighting with one now for over 20 years. I keep thinking I’ve got the upper hand but they never fail to surprise me. Just as soon as I think that I’m getting fairly expert at the family thing with strategies for hiding away when they have their friends around, disappearing when they want money and giving in gracefully when they don’t want to do the washing up, which is always, they come up with another surprise.
They’ve done it again. After 20 years, they’re all suddenly disappeared. You’d think that I would have predicted this but somehow I didn’t. On the one hand, I feel grateful because life will be simpler now that my grumpy old man mood swings can only be blamed on me. On the other hand, I somehow got used to having them around and it feels strange.
Talking about people you get used to having around, just under two years ago my mom died. Like your kids, you don’t know what you are losing until it your mom is gone. It hit me harder than I ever could have expected. I won’t dwell on the tears at my mom’s funeral except to say thank goodness for my eldest daughter who managed to carry on with the reading despite the racket from her distraught dad.
Nor will I dwell on the con artists who ripped off my confused mom in the last years of her life with unfulfilled promises of large cash prizes, if she would only send a small or not so small administrative fee.
Or the national UK bank who were charging her massive bank charges when she went into overdraft sending money to the con artists. Although it must be mentioned that the very same bank was also charging her 12% on a very small first mortgage on her house when everybody else was paying around 5%. They only reduced the interest rate when I threatened to name and shame them.
My mom’s greatest weakness was that she trusted people and she thought her bank manager was her friend. Events certainly proved otherwise. Rather, I would like to focus on the positives.
When we discovered mom had cancer, even though she was in complete denial, I was able to talk to the consultant and find out how much time my mom had left. This meant that I knew exactly the amount of time I had to be the best son in the world. It concentrated my mind immensely. I knew that, if I was going to do it, I had to do it now. Later was not an option. Procrastination is normally my middle name but on this occasion I needed to be Action Man.
So I visited her often and listened avidly to her reminiscences about past family members, what she did in the Great War and the multitude of other topics that, in previous years, would have had me heading for the door.
I devised strategies that would enable me to spend more time with her in a way that was easiest for both of us. For many years she worked as an estate agent, and she loved nothing more than to be driven around the streets and roads where she used to sell houses, which she was no longer able to do for herself, due to infirmity . She loved every minute of it, craning her head around constantly, trying to see the latest property extensions or external property redecorations. All the time, as I drove, she carried on a running commentary as to who had lived in that house or that house over the last 30 years, even down to details of their jobs and the names of the members of their families.
When she said something that I didn’t agree with, which was often, I gently demurred and sought to avoid the possibility of a full scale argument. We had so little time that it made no sense to spend it arguing.
When the time came and my mom died, I felt, as many do, guilty that I had not done more. This is a normal emotion felt during bereavement. However, knowing that I had done all I could for those months, made it just a little bit easier and the guilt a little bit less. I realized that, although it appeared I was doing all these things for my mom, in many ways, I was doing them for myself – but that was ok because it was all part of coping.
However, there is life in the old man yet and there is another positive that I, as a son, took from the experience of losing my mom. Once, somewhat later, when my son was being irritating, as he is very often, I was able to say to him.
“You know, son, there is one good thing about when I’m dead and gone!”
“What’s that, Dad? Yawn …”
“It’s going to hurt you more than it will be hurting me!”
“Yeah dad … right … duh!” Thanks mom!
Bye for now Rob
