Week 48 Prompt: 'Next to Last'
The last thing we do is die, so I want to thank my mother again before that happens.
In Memory of MY MUM xx - Lilian Agnes Pearce née Cottam
24.08.1913 - 02.08.1996
When I think of my mother (and I do often) - my brow softens, my face relaxes, I smile and I have a big sigh.
I love my mum and always will - she was my mainstay for most of my life.
She was calm, unbiased, honest, loyal, dedicated, thoughtful and loving,
She was always a very hard worker, especially on the orchard and taught us to be the same.
Our brother was her favourite I think - not that it mattered as we were Daddy's little girls.
One strong memory I have is of her leaning over the basin in the laundry on the verandah at Grahamvale - washing her long hair. It was the only time we saw it out loose. She would then go out into the sunshine and brush it dry - how it shone. Then back into 2 plaits and once again coil it up around her head. I don't think she had it cut short until we moved to town in the late '50s. Then it was my turn to set her hair in rollers !
My mother suffered - she spent many years sick from her 40's through to her 60's but then thank heavens seemed to settle into a healthier place.
I was the one closest to home and she loved it when any of us were with her.
My mother was a letter writer. She wrote religiously every week to my brother away at college in the city. And she was always so excited when his letters arrived back. She would call us in and read them out to us. When I left home, she wrote to me or phoned me every weekend. (By then phones were accepted for general use).
She missed my brother and sister who moved overseas to live permanently - and continued her weekly corresponding. Her letters were not fanciful or clever but in a nice way - mundane - telling of the week's doings - so it was more the finding of them in the letterbox with that beautiful script that touched our heartstrings. Often, she put in a little cutting from the local newspaper she thought we would be interested in. Later when we had children, she included little puzzles and colour-in pictures for them.
I love that I was able to visit her quite a bit in later years and grew very close to her. My husband and I could do little things for her to make her life easier and return all the favours I owed.
She loved me to massage her back which often ached, and she would lay there whilst we nattered, and I rubbed.
She spent a lot of her time in her latter years on her old Singer sewing machine doing voluntary mending for the Blue Nurses Nursing Home and patients.
There is so much more I could tell you about my darling Mum - but I will leave it there for the time being
Love you and miss you Mum x
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