Mum

It was 24 years ago today (early this morning actually) that I woke up thinking something was amiss in the house and discovered that my mum had passed away suddenly from a cerebral aneurysm. She was 41, the same age I am now.

It’s weird, totally weird to think that in less than 12 months I will be older than my own mother. I went through a lot of anxiety about this last year – convinced that it was impossible that could even happen. I have been getting some counselling and have pretty much worked through that one and now I am just left again with that gaping chasm that is always there when you’re a motherless daughter.

I am blessed with a wonderful family and beautiful children and I think I have a pretty good life. I think I learnt to be strong early on – not having a mother for your whole adult life forces you do grow up pretty resilient.

The loss of my mother remains incomparable in terms of both shock and sorrow to anything that has ever happened to me in my life – including the terrible trauma of Satria’s birth. Because despite it all, despite everything that happened that day and has followed, he has LIVED. We are wonderfully and blissfully blessed with him in our lives every day.

Grief does strange things – catches you unawares when you least expect it, makes you cry and laugh and get angry at the world – but it also does heal you a little bit with every wave. Of course I will miss my mum for the rest of my life and wish so so much she was still here, but I reflect so much more on her life rather than her death these days and I am looking forward with excitement to my number one project of 2013 which is to compile a blog about her, gathering photos and anecdotes and memories from friends and family. I already know that blogging is an amazing therapeutic tool, but even more than that if I can put together a worthy record of my mum’s life then she will live on in a more real way to me AND to her grandchildren, who all occasionally ask questions about grandma Penny and who deserve to get to know her better.

This day where I am feeling sad will pass and I look forward with energy and enthusiasm to tomorrow where I slowly start to bring her back to life.