Little Legacy #11 A Stitch in Time

Little legacy is a remembrance project , a positive and creative space, to celebrate small things handed down by predecessors. 

A small heart shaped button fell off my daughter's pyjamas and bounced across the bathroom floor. She chased it and held it up to my face, pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

'Can you fix it?' she said.
'I'll sew it back on' I said, fingers mentally crossed behind my back.

But I underestimated the power of the vortex. I wrote about the vortex here, it's a concept described by Joan Didion in her book about bereavement, My Year of Magical Thinking. One tiny thing can take you far, far away, in this case it's a button.

'I didn't know you could sew,' said Miss L.
'My mum taught me,' I said.

And those four words sent me soaring into the vortex.

I can't conjure one specific memory of sewing with my mum, they are all interwoven now, a vast patchwork quilt of sewing memories, bigger than the sum of it's parts. The book bag we made together for primary school, the clothkits dolls, the buttons we sewed back on, the holes we fixed, the binca we cross stitched, the parallel trousers we made, the adjustments to my prom dress, and my wedding dress.

So one tiny heart shaped button led me to pick up needle and thread again. I started work on a pile of garments I have been avoiding repairing for years, mainly because, despite all she taught me, my mum was the seamstress. When my Dad fell for her in the 60s, she was making her own clothes, stylish creations that made her stand out from the crowd.  She lovingly crafted so many outfits for me and my brother.  But, when she got ill, asking her to fix my clothes seemed wrong, so they were shoved in a bag at the back of the wardrobe.

As I sewed, I heard her voice guiding me. Interwoven into every stitch was a running commentary on how to thread the needle, where to pierce the fabric, how to secure the first and last stitch.

A rather beautiful little legacy, a vortex that effortlessly conjured my mother's voice, and resulted in an immensely satisfying pile of 'new' clothes.

My needle case, made with my mum from left over pyjama material, Miss L's heart shaped pyjama button.

Are there tasks, jobs, hobbies, occurrences that conjure up the voice of someone special? Have you got fond memories of learning a new skill from somebody? I'd love to hear more on this or any little legacy, in a post, or the comments.   More on Little Legacy


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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

On Brilliance and Bravery

Not quite sure what  to do with this week.  'A sad happy day in the Alexander Residence' I think I tweeted.  Here is the only way I have found to explain it, a bleat from behind the tweet...

I want to say a huge thanks for the votes and the award.   I couldn't believe I was nominated, never mind winning the Fresh Voice category.  I am surrounded by brilliance at every turn, constantly in awe of amazing blogs.

The award was a lovely shiny beacon of happiness in a week which has been one of the worst in my life.  My mum has brain cancer.  I haven't blogged about this, because the blog is one of my coping mechanisms.  Last week she was admitted to hospital, became very sleepy and today, for the first time, the word hospice was spoken.  She has put up an amazing fight against a very aggressive form of cancer.  I have had a lot longer to come to terms with this than I thought I would, two and a half years.

I haven't been blogging very long, but I feel hugely supported by this community.  I am surrounded by so much brilliance.   Blogging and tweeting help to keep me going, the jokes, the banter.  Which is why I have been avoiding talking about cancer here, I don't want to alter things.   But then it became like a huge bubble of subtext which was ready to burst.  Sad news is weird, people stop talking to you.  I feel like I am taking a gamble here....Please please keep talking to me.  I have stumbled on new blogs before when people have been going through bad times and not been sure if it was invading.  You're not. 

I may be a bit raw, all over the place but I intend to blog through this.   Probably more about the normal stuff than the bad stuff, because that's how I deal with it.  My good friend whose sister lived through cancer told me cancer needs a box, you can take it out of the box, explore it, think about it, cry about it, but then it has to go back in the box. 

Dedicating the award to My Mum x

When did the yummy mummy army take over children's books?

Shirley Hughes

One of my parenting new year resolutions was to read more books to my children. In the library this week I was struck by the extent to which the yummy mummy army has crept into children's literature.  My 4yo kept bringing me books full of glamorous foxy mums in floaty skirts, heels and flicked out glossy manes. No she hadn't picked up a copy of Vogue by mistake (Maybe though, she is trying to tell me something?  I reckon I scrub up ok when I need to, but I am far from being impeccably groomed in my day to day role of mum)

I looked at the books, looked round the library and laughed, no mum wears that kind of gear in the company of small children.  Unless it's a wedding, when you spend the whole day hissing 'don't you dare touch me with those sticky fingers'. Or you're a celebrity with a nanny and stylist in tow.

Anyway it made me all nostalgic for the mums of my late 70s/early 80s upbringing.  My own mum.  The mums of Shirley Hughes. The jeans and jumpers and let's go and get mucky in the garden and make crap cupcakes brigade. Rather than the let's go to the cafe and wear a pink dress, while I sip a cappuchino and nibble at an artisan cupcake brigade.  There are enough pressures to be a yummy mummy in the media, keep this out of children's books please.

On the flip side, my son loves Judith Kerr's The Tiger that Came to Tea which is a time honoured classic, but not a wonderful representation of the liberated woman. Sophie's mum defers all decisions to Sophie's Dad after she lets a tiger into the family home, panics she has nothing for Dad's tea and even lets Dad drink all the beer.  But I don't think lounging on a chaise lounge in a pink dress and reading interior decorating magazines (seriously this is what one mum was doing in a book we read) is any more aspirational either (although maybe a nice way to spend 10 mins if you can organise it).

Representations make a huge difference to groups in society. So I am recommending a book with a powerful Mum role model:

My Mum by Anthony Browne.  His My Dad is good too.

Any other recommendations?