The Gallery - 24 hours

The theme at Sticky Fingers is 24 hours.  I am grateful for The Gallery, because over the last few months it has given me the chance to think about the events leading up to yesterday.  Often in a round about way, but in a significant way too.

Yesterday was my mum's funeral.  The longest and saddest but also the most special and inspiring 24 hours.  We chose a humanist ceremony, and it was outstanding.  It was such a celebration of my mum's life, and marked perfectly the ways that she will live on in the lives she has influenced.  I soaked up every last drop of stories from her friends and family.  In 24 hours I suddenly felt I had this amazing bird's eye view of her life, lots of through lines came together and I had a wonderful sense of her, as much more than my mum.

                                         

This is the picture, taken by my Dad, we chose for the Order of Service.  The image that we contemplated during the few minutes silence after her eulogy.   Everyone felt it was incredibly powerful, the perfect image. Some people prayed, others reflected.   Looking at it was very sad, I think there a real a mixture of emotions there, it was taken after her first operation to remove a brain tumour, when she was doing remarkably well - and rocking her new short hairdo - but she knew that the cancer would probably return.  We had got together as a family, with my brother's girlfriend's family and it was a magical weekend.  My mum's smile, positivity, supportiveness and all round loveliness are all in this image, and I found that hugely comforting.

I'm very tired, so this post by no means does the day justice, but the 24 hours themselves were an amazing tribute to my mum. 

In terms of my own pictures, I took this to capture the sea of cards that arrived before the funeral and I took one of my dad, my brother and his girlfriend, and my brother took one of me and Mr A.  We were waiting nervously for the car to pick us up, suddenly we realised how smart we looked and someone remarked that if mum had been here she would have been busy taking photos of everyone.  So we took them in her honour, but I am not sure it's right to post them.

                                                    

Goodbye Mum

Banksy - Always Hope

After I posted that my mum was going into a hospice I recieved so many words of support, here and in my offline life, all of them perfect in their own way, despite people's pleas that they didn't know what to say. Thank you.

My amazing mum died in the hospice on Thursday 27th January 2011.  She was peaceful and we were with her.  The hospice was amazing, mum's care was fantastic, but they also care for relatives too.  It doesn't make it less sad, but it makes it calmer.

I could write a million blog posts on the experiences of the last few weeks, one will never do it justice.

My mum was amazing and inspirational. She was so thoughtful, so interested in everyone she met. She was so positive despite cancer. She taught me a million and one things which I've been scribbling down furiously.

My friend sent me this Banksy as a card, its the image my parents also sent me for my birthday card last year (cool parents huh?)  It reminded me my mum used to read to me from a book about a French boy with a magic red ballon. It's a book based on a film from her child hood.  I read it to her last week.  At the end the little boy floats off in a bunch of ballons.

I wish I could give the four year old this image of Gran drifting away in a bunch of ballons, but I read up and everything points to honesty.  We read Goodbye Mousie and Always and Forever.  Miss L is stunning us all with her understanding and sensitivity.  I'm not sure about taking her to the funeral (a humanist ceremony) but I know she needs something.  I would love to hear about any experiences with this age group.

One of the things my mum taught me was the importance of rites of passage, that I could create my own ceremonies and rituals if I wanted.  I didn't want to go to my PGCE degree ceremony after feeling like part of a herd of cattle at my first degree ceremony.  Instead we walked on Devil's Dyke and she made me a daisy chain headdress and told me how proud she was.  Little things like that keep popping into my head, reminding me what an absolutely amazing woman she was.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,

and you shall see that in truth you are weeping

for that which has been your delight.

Kahil Gibran