Losing Mum

So, now Mum's gone, too. Dad nearly five years ago, and Mum at the end of last month.

But what does it really mean? It was terribly sad, and I hurt, of course, but ... Mum was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's about ten years ago. Apparently, she outlived the average. But it was gut-wrenching to see the decline in her. No-one should have to see that, or, indeed, go through it. The only "blessing" is that she never knew what she had become.

I'm not a religious person, but in my heart and my gut I believe that somewhere, somehow, we go on after death. Even if it's just electrons in space, something goes on. So I believe Mum and Dad are together again; because that's all they ever wanted. Being apart was horrendous to them. From the time they met -- and Mum was still a teenager -- they were together; a team in everything they did.

But the lady who died last month was no longer "Mum". She was a white-haired old darling, but she no longer had any link with us. My mother died about four years ago, when she finally lost contact with reality and with us.

Let me tell you about Gloria Tuffin. She had a mind like a steel trap. If she'd ever taken an IQ test I can guarantee it would have been in the region 140 -- 145 ... but she never did. She had to leave school early, like so many of her generation. But it never stopped her lifelong love of learning. She especially loved words, and word games, and meanings, and puns, and malapropisms ... She taught me to read before I went to kindy. She taught me to think about reading. She gave me a love of words that has sustained my livelihood to my own retirement, coming soon.

My fondest memories are lying in my bed in the back sleepout (my bedroom), with the rain hammering on the corrugated iron roof, and Mum next to me, reading with endless patience from novels, comics, cartoon books -- whatever. If I really think back, I can even remember the way she cleared her throat before starting to read to me. And I would rest my head on her shoulder, and read along in my mind, and listen to her voice, until everything grew woolly and I drifted off to sleep.

She loved to laugh. Her laugh was free and melodic and uninhibited. When the British comedian Tommy Trinder did a show in Perth on their first wedding anniversary, they were there, in the front rows. Mum loved his ever so slightly risque jokes, and laughed along with them. Then he stopped the show, walked to the front of the stage, pointed to Mum and said, "Here, missus, how can you look so clean and laugh so dirty?".

Of course, he probably did that at every show, picking on some hapless person. But I choose to think he really meant it with Mum.

I think she would have been pleased with her send-off. She had no love of pomp and ceremony and detested wedding or funerals that, in her words, "went on and on and on". We played some music that probably puzzled some of the congregation, but Mum would have known why we chose those tunes.

Psalm 23 was a no-brainer; she loved it. We chose this version. Yes, I know, Vicar of Dibley. But apart from that it is a beautiful, haunting melodic version that Mum would have loved.

Dad used to paraphrase and sing to her, "I'll be seizing you, in all the old familiar places". So we had to play this. They used to dance to it at the old Palace in Perth.

And finally, Dad's nickname for Mum was Gloria Glow Worm ... don't ask me why, he never said. Maybe it was euphonic or maybe it was because it was a hit they remembered.

So that's my mum ... goodbye, darling. You loved your family -- and laughter. We'll honour that memory as long as we can.


Say hello to Dad for us, Mum.